The Toon Files Season 11
by Scream96
Summary: Peng the snow leopard is off to college, where he meets friends both old and new. However, near the end of the semester a dark secret from the town's past begins to arise, and Peng and the crew must figure out who's behind everything before it's too late...
1. Splashdown in the Clubhouse

**The Toon Files Episode 131: Splashdown in the Clubhouse.**

There are steps people take as they get older, like learning to drive, and finding a career path. For many people, going off to college is one of these steps.

In one of the worlds of old China, Peng, the nephew of Tai Lung was packing his things up. He had gone through so much training in kung fu over the past several years, and he decided to expand his talents in other areas.

"This is gonna be awesome for you," Po grinned to the snow leopard in his mid-20s. "Is there a kung fu club there?"

"We're not sure," Lian replied, she was Peng's girlfriend, "But if there isn't we'll definitely try to start one!"

"If only Shifu could see the two of you," Tigress said. She and Tai Lung's own children were becoming kung fu experts in their own right, but Peng had been the first young kung fu artist since the Furious Five themselves were children that Shifu ever got to truly know growing up.

"We'll come to visit you guys on weekends," Lian assured the Dragon Warrior and the Furious Five, "Albright University is not that far away."

"Take care," Viper waved her tail.

"So long," Peng replied, he and Lian putting on their packs and heading for the portal.

…

In the world of Total Drama, since the flow of time was much slower there, Gwen was packing up for college.

"We'll miss you," Gwen's mother said, slightly tearing up, as Gwen's brother Mitch simply stood by and gave her a quick hug that he really felt forced into giving.

"No one else is even watching this and I still feel embarrassed," the goth girl said.

"If you find any of the Wii Party game cards while you're there, be sure to send them to me," Mitch smiled to his sister.

"You know I'm not going to look for those," Gwen replied teasingly. "Anyways, my bus is here, I have to get to the portal."

Gwen's goal for college had always been to study art, and Albright University had the courses she was looking for as part of their curriculum.

"Take care sweetie!" Gwen's mother waved as Gwen got on the bus.

"See ya!" Gwen waved to her family as the bus took off towards the portal.

…

In the world of Lunatea, there was a certain someone who was pretty much being forced to go to college.

"Why do I have to go?" Popka grumbled, as Lolo, Leorina, and Tat helped pack his bags.

"The High Priestess says it would help get you more disciplined," Lolo explained to her good friend.

"I'll use your stuff while you're gone," Tat teased, sticking out her tongue.

"Why you brat!" Popka frowned, unable to ignore Tat's teasings of him.

"I think you just proved her point," Leorina smirked, as Klonoa came in.

"Don't worry buddy," the cabbit assured Popka, "I've done this kind of thing before, it's no hell on earth, if that's what you were thinking."

"I'm thinking it's going to be so boring," Popka yawned, as Leorina and Tat readied their biplane for travel.

"Well, you got no choice," Leorina said, "It's the priestess's request that you spend at least 1 semester at this university she picked out."

"So, hop in the plane," Tat said, putting on her aviator goggles, "We won't charge you a travel fee this time," she added with a giggle.

"Great, that really made my day," Popka said sarcastically, as he loaded his bags in the back of the biplane, which took off into the skies of Lunatea towards the portals to other worlds.

…..

**Yokohama, Japan, 1965.**

Though she lived in a world that hadn't hit the 2000s (or obviously, not the 1990s either), Umi Matsuzaki had learned a lot about other worlds and the technology of newer ages that she was also headed to Albright University, and she was spending the day saying her goodbyes to her family and her friends.

After saying goodbye to her mother, Umi headed towards her school. There was one place in particular she wanted to see one more time from her high school career before she headed off to college: the Latin Quartier. This was an impressive building where all the clubs of the high school had their home bases, and it was many levels tall.

"This place never looked better," Umi smiled, as her younger sister Sora and her younger brother Riku walked by.

"I'm thinking of going for the school paper," Riku informed his big sister.

"Oh really," Sora teased, "What are you going to write about, how you can't make the track team?"

"Hey," Riku frowned, as Sora took off up the stairs to one of the higher levels.

"Hey Umi," a male voice called. It belonged to Shun Kazama, her boyfriend. There was a point where Umi and Shun thought they might have been related, but much to their relief, they found out they weren't, and Umi's family took care of Shun when he was a baby before giving him to another adopted family. "I heard you'll be heading out tonight."

"I am," Umi nodded, "I just wanted to see this place one last time before I head out. I won't be back till December, after all."

"We'll miss you," Shun smiled, as Umi went to look around the Latin Quartier.

…

A little while later, when Umi was seeing all the members of the clubs that had come and gone since she was in a high school, she saw something lying on the floor.

"A letter?" she noticed, picking it up, "And it's addressed….to me?"

But as Umi went to read it, all of a sudden, she was hit by a water balloon!

"What the heck?!" Umi exclaimed, her dress soaked head to toe, "Who did this?!"

"Umi, what's going on?" Shun asked, coming out from the room across the floor from Umi, the room in question leading to the club of the school's newspaper.

"Someone hit me with a water balloon," Umi explained, wringing the water out of her hair, "Did you see who did it?"

"No," Shun replied, walking over to Umi, "I was telling the guys who would be taking control of the newspaper now that I'm finished with high school how to work the printing press and the recommended schedule."

A thought occurred to Umi. If Shun had indeed been in that room, then there was something bothering her. She quickly walked around the floor of the Latin Quartier she was on, checking the other clubs' rooms. Currently, there was no one inside any of them.

"What's going on?" Shun asked again, confused.

"It looks like someone managed to splash me with a water balloon without even being on this floor," Umi revealed.

"Huh?" Shun said, confused.

….

Currently, Sora was one floor above where her older sister and Shun were. She was looking into joining the biology club this year.

"Just put your name on the sign-up sheet," the club president told Umi's sister.

"Thanks," Sora nodded, taking a pencil out of her backpack. As she wrote her name down, she saw Umi and Shun coming towards her.

"Hey Sora," Umi said to her sister.

"Hey Umi," Sora replied, and then she noticed how soaked Umi was, "What happened to you, sis?"

"Someone splashed me with a water balloon," Umi revealed with a growl, "And I'm going to find out who it was."

"Ah, a mystery," Sora said, "I think they have a club for that here, don't they?"

"They do," Shun nodded, "But all of those guys are in town, eating lunch, we can't go to them to have them figure this out."

"Hey Sora, were you on this floor for the last 5 minutes?" Umi asked her sister.

"Yeah, I was, what did you want to know?" Sora asked in response.

"Did you see anyone walking around, holding a water balloon?" Umi asked next.

Sora paused for a moment and began to think. "No, I don't believe I did," Sora responded, "But considering these are the last few days of Summer vacation for us I wouldn't find it hard to believe that there's some prankster wanting his last hurrah before class starts, and you just happened to be the butt of one of his jokes."

"That could be true," Umi nodded to Sora, "But I'm not giving up on this investigation yet."

"I thought they fixed the railings here," Shun said suddenly.

"What do you mean?" Umi asked.

"There's a groove in one of these, and I thought the construction club was able to fill these in," Shun explained.

"That is weird," Sora nodded.

….

Riku was on the bottom floor of the Latin Quartier, looking around the rooms of all the various clubs his new high school had to offer. As the youngest sibling of his family, his high school story was just beginning.

"Hey sis," Riku waved, seeing Umi and Shun come down the stairs. Like Sora before him, he was quick to notice the state that his older sister was in. "What happened to you, Umi? Did you fall into the pool or something?"

"No, someone tossed a water balloon at me," Umi replied with a slight growl, "And from what I'm seeing right now, it looks like it could've been you, Riku."

"Me?" Riku replied, offended by the accusation, "What makes you think it was me?"

"As we were coming back downstairs," Umi explained, "I saw a trail of water along the grown just below where I was standing when I got hit by the water balloon."

Riku looked down and saw a trail of water drops going in a straight line up to the wall.

"Look, I'm not that mad about this," Umi said to her brother, "Just apologize and I'll put this all behind us."

"But Umi, it wasn't me," Riku said again in his own defense, "I never touched a water balloon this whole day. And I've been downstairs this whole time, if I wanted to do something like this, don't you think I would've waited until I could've tossed it at you at point blank range?"

"But then how do you explain the trail of water drops?" Shun asked, "If the balloon was covered in water on the outside it's natural that there would be some dripping off of it."

"Well, maybe," Riku began to suggest, "Someone tossed it at her across from where she was standing. I mean, if it traveled over the gap here, the water would probably drop down onto the floor."

Umi stopped and thought about her brother's theory. He had a point, what they saw didn't confirm that he was the one who had to be behind the water balloon. But if what he was saying was true, then there was only one possible person who could've tossed the water balloon.

…..

Not wanting to think Shun could be the culprit, Umi went back up to the floor of the Latin Quartier where she had gotten soaked by herself to look for further clues.

"Now that I think about it," Umi said to herself, "It's very likely that whoever tossed the balloon at me set that note down here on the ground to bait me into their trap."

Umi began to look at the pieces of the popped water balloon. "That's weird," she said next, looking in the immediate vicinity, looking for something she felt should be there, "The tied end of the water balloon….why can't I find that piece?"

As Umi was looking around for this item, she looked up and saw something she wasn't expecting to see. "What's that doing up there?" she asked, surprised.

Umi had some of the members of other clubs bring her a ladder with which she could climb up with. Climbing up, she pulled an arrow out of the wall across and above where she had been hit by the water balloon.

"How'd this get here?" Umi asked, puzzled, and then she got a close look at the arrow. At one end was a tiny wire attached, and at the end of the wire was the tied end piece of the balloon.

Umi smirked as every piece of this puzzle began to fit together nicely. "I know who did this," she grinned.

….

Umi went to one floor higher up in the Latin Quartier.

"Hey sis," Sora smiled to her big sister, "Did you find out who hit you with the water balloon?"

That's what I wanted to talk about," Umi said to Sora, "After doing an investigation, I've figured out that the one who soaked me had to be you….Sora!"

"Me?" Sora laughed, "That's crazy talk. How could I have hit you? I was standing one floor above you, have could I have gotten a clean shot?"

"By using fishing wire and a crossbow," Umi explained, having uncovered her sister's trick. "You tied a line of fishing wire to the end of the water balloon to suspend it over me. You intended to drop it on me. That's what caused the groove in the railing that Shun had noticed."

"You think that was caused by a fishing wire?" Sora laughed.

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Umi replied, "You set the letter addressed to me in the spot you needed me to be in to pull off your trick. Once you knew I was in the correct position, you soaked me with the balloon."

"Going by that theory," Sora replied in her defense, "How was I able to get rid of the fishing wire?"

"By using a crossbow, like I mentioned earlier," Umi replied, "What bothered me was how I could not find the tied end of the water balloon, that's something that usually stays together even when a balloon pops, but then I noticed the arrow in the wall above Shun."

"What does that prove?" Sora asked.

"You tied the other end of the fishing wire to the arrow. Once you dropped the balloon, at the same time you fired an arrow at the wall across from you. This caused the wire to shoot away, leaving only the water balloon itself on the floor I got soaked on. That's also why there were some droplets of water on the ground floor. The tied end was wet itself a little bit, so that was the source of those water marks," Umi revealed.

"But where's your proof it was me?" Sora asked as a last defense.

"You don't have any gloves on you," Umi replied to her younger sister, "So your finger prints should be on the arrow. The fact it still had the tied end of the balloon stuck to it is just the icing on the cake, plus the fact it was at an angle that could only be hit by someone standing on the floor you were on."

"Alright, you win," Sora smiled to her big sister.

"But why would you soak me Sora?" Umi demanded to know of her sibling.

"You're about to go off to college sis," Sora replied with a smirk.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Umi replied.

"You remember the prank wars we had when we were younger?" Sora explained to Umi, "I wanted to get one last joke on you before you headed off for the season."

"You….." Umi said to a growl, but then she formed a gentle smile, "I'm gonna miss you Sora," she took her sister into a hug.

"I'll be waiting for you in December," Sora smiled to Umi.

"We all will be," Shun nodded, as he and Riku came up to see the situation.

Eventually, everyone went to watch Umi take off into the portal where she would head for Alright University.

…

Peng, Lian, Gwen, Popka, and Umi arrived at the Albright University campus two days before classes started.

"This is where we'll be living for the next 16 weeks," Lian said to Peng as they went into the dormitory they had been assigned.

"Welcome to Typhon Hall," said a young Viking named Hiccup. "I take it you're all staying here as well?"

"We are," Peng nodded, looking at who else would be their dorm-mates for the semester. Besides Hiccup, there was a human named Kai, a raccoon named Bert, a Spix Michaw named Blu, and a princess named Anna.

"This might not be so bad," Gwen smirked, enjoying the start of an independent life.

"Speak for yourself," Popka grumbled, still not happy at all with his situation.

"Let this adventure begin," Peng grinned to Lian, as they went to find their rooms.

What no one in Typhon Hall could possibly have guessed was that they were eventually going to get involved in a mystery and secrets darker than any of them could have imagined…..


	2. Cardfight Killer

**The Toon Files Episode 132: Cardfight Killer.**

by Archangel

Lian was settling into her dorm room. "That's weird," the snow leopardess commented, "The chart said I had a roommate…."

"I'm down here," a voice called. Lian looked down to see someone she had recognized from the news of other worlds.

It was Abigail, the woodmouse from Dapplewood. She had been a member of the Toon Detective Complex ten years back, and now that that had closed down, Abigail decided to go into other fields. She wanted to go into architecture and construction. She was hoping by learning these skills she'd be able to help build more environmentally friendly buildings in her world and prevent further damage like the kind she had experienced when she was a child.

"You can have the top bunk," Abigail smirked to Lian, "It's too much of an effort for me to get up there by myself."

"So, who else is on this floor?" Lian asked.

"We're two of those," two voices said. Lian turned to see a bat girl and wolf girl standing in the hall.

"I'm Zoey Moyer, this is my friend Tina Sark," the bat introduced.

"I call the PS4 in the lounge," Tina smirked, the wolf was quite the gamer.

"Video games are so fun," Anna nodded, having been a new experience to her ever since she learned of other worlds besides Arendelle.

….

Peng's roommate in his dorm ended up being Popka.

"I've been looking forward to this for a while now, how about you?" Peng smiled eagerly.

"I'm being forced into coming here," Popka groaned.

"Any of you guys want to try my new flying bicycle?" Bert Raccoon asked the newcomers to Albright University.

"That looks unsafe…." Peng noted with audible uncertainty in his voice.

"And that design does not allow for maximum aerodynamics," Blu nodded, flying over the other guys.

"Yeah, I don't think I'd try that," Umi nodded.

"That doesn't look epic enough for me," Dean Playmer, a tiger, smirked. He was known around the campus for being a showoff in terms of both grades and athletics.

"Quiet!" a voice called from inside one of the dorm rooms, "I'm trying to study here."

"But classes haven't even started yet," Gwen pointed out.

"Don't mind him," Hiccup said about the lizard who demanded silence, "That's Zach Riley, he takes his studies very very seriously."

As the newcomers to Typhon Hall were having a talk with those who were going into their second or further year, one of them, a human with skills in the art of card fighting was imply standing and leaning against a wall, thinking about something that had happened at his previous school.

….

**Tokyo, Japan, 2013.**

Fuukuhara High was abuzz. Rumors that their cardfight club and the club from Miyaji Academy would be having a match filled the classrooms. It was going to be an event to remember. But for Toshigi Kai, the sandy brown haired teen with a cold mood, it was the ultimate challenge.

Today, he would be facing his friend and rival Aichi Sendou, a blue haired student of Miyaji just entering high school. But in the game they shared, Cardfight Vanguard, he was unmatched. It was a true challenge that made Kai smile.

One blonde, spiky haired friend Miwa noticed.

"Getting excited are we, Mr. Team Captain?" He said with a friendly chuckle. Kai sighed, a little annoyed but managed to keep that small smile. Miwa was like that, his old friend.

"You going to spar with me before the match?" He asked, but Miwa shook his head.

"You have been in here so long you lost track of time! Everyone is waiting for you! the Miyaji Academy team is almost here! Ren and his lackeys are already on the floor, as is Shin and Assisstacat! Even that bully Kyo is here!"

Kai chuckled once. Figured it would be like this. He already knew they would all show up. Everyone who knew Kai and Aichi had wanted to see a fight between them; it was going to be epic. Kai stood and put away his deck, ready to begin the fight.

What he didn't know was there would be no fight today...

…..

As Kai took his place on the basketball field sized motion figure system, he watched as his blue haired friend Aichi placed his deck. He was young, about four years younger, but since playing Vanguard he had changed from a scared kid to a outgoing leader. And he was STRONG/ His deck was one that few have beaten, and most of them only with the help of a psychic ability known as Psyqualia, which allowed the user to talk to the cards and make a winning image that could not fail.

It didn't always work, but it was the only way people have beaten Aichi these days, and Kai liked that. It meant he would be the first.

"Kai, I hope you are ready." Aichi said with a smile.

"Oh I am. I have waited for this for some time, my friend."

Aichi nodded. "Let's make this a fight to fire everyone up!"

He turned to his friends: Misaki, Naoki, Shingo, Korrin... They were smiling as they watched. And by Kai, there was Morikawa, Isagi, Miwa, and even little Kamue. The two were surrounded by their friends, and even their enemies.

They placed their cards.

"Now stand up..."

But they got no further. As the system activated, warning sirens went off. Everyone in the stands stood in shock, and suddenly, Aichi's table for the system exploded, sending him and his cards flying. Kai went wide eyed as he saw his friend, screaming, fly into the wall.

"AICHI!" He shouted, his cards falling to the floor as he dashed past, rushing to him, along with many others. The boy was badly hurt, a bad bruise on his head, blood coming from a wound on the back of it, and his arms were broken. Kai looked up.

"GET THE MEDIC NOW!" HE screamed, Miwa nodding and rushing to help, as several audience members cringed and shuddered. Kai looked at them all fiercely.

Someone had done this. And he was determined to find out who.

….

As the stadium cleared, Kai and Miwa examined the destroyed table, just as Ren Suzukamori came in. Wielder of Shadow Paladins and a scary fighter, Ren was also a good friend, if a little weird. But now he, like everyone who knew Aichi, was very serious.

"Well?" Kai asked him. Ren smiled.

"Aichi will be okay. Bad bump on the head, and broke a few bones, but he is going to be alright in a couple weeks. He's just got to rest for now. His deck was a little damaged, but I can replace the cards."

Kai nodded. "Thanks Ren, I owe you." He resumed looking the device over, but it was so badly damaged he couldn't get much. "Damn it..."

Ren hmmmed. "What are you doing, detective Kai?"

Kai growled. "Someone did this to Aichi. I want to find out who and how. But..."

Ren nodded and approached. "Funny thing about these devices. They can record data in a central computer. We can use that to find how it happened."

Miwa blinked. "How did you know that?!"

Ren smiled. "Takuto Tatsunagi, the maker, told me. Besides I make these machines as well." He hmmed and accessed the computer the two stands were connected to. "Well now, that's interesting."

Kai blinked. "What is?"

"Seems the wires for the holoprojection and the power were crossed. No wonder the table blew up. When the holoprojection was activated.."

"It was like a bomb." Kai finished. "Well that eliminates most people, now that we know HOW it happened.

Miwa nodded. "Yeah, most of the classes were not in the stadium. Only Shin, Assisstacat, Ren's team, Takudo, and Aichi's friends were in here."

Kai hmmmed. "You were there as well Miwa, as well as Mr. Mark. Kyo was also there."

Miwa nodded. "Lot of suspects."

Kai nodded. "And I want to see them all."

….

Kyo Yahage was first, the silver haired junior shouting as he was interviewed.

"Figured you would suspect me Kai. I didn't do it! Why would I?"

"Because you hate Aichi almost as much as me and Ren." Kai said, crossing his arms.

"Well yeah, but my plan is to win in a cardfight, not murder someone. Besides it looks to me like it was unintentional!"

Kai blinked. "How do you mean?"

"I noticed before the match the bottom on the cover was loose. Now if someone wanted to do it on purpose, don't you think they would have hid it better?"

Kai leaned in close. "Why didn't you say something?!"

Kyo eeeked and backed up. "Come on! Who would believe me, huh?!"

Kai sighed. "Well... I believe you. But don't go anywhere just yet. You may be on to something."

….

Takudo was next. While an unlikely suspect, he knew all about the motion figure system, so he would have knowledge of how itt worked.

"Yes, it is possible that it was an accident. Replacing the bottom panel is a bit complicated, and the wire connections are not exactly clear. Anyone not proficient in electronics would have a hard time figuring it out."

Kai nodded. "Anything else you can tell me?"

Takudo hmmmed. "Well, the device has to be raised up by standing where the cardfighter would stand. The result kicks dirt up onto the shoes and lower pants. Nothing too serious, but definitely noticeable. Also, there is a chance that there would be a footprint."

"Unlikely. Lots of people use the system. But I'll watch for the dust." He noted Takudo's shoes, as well as Rens and Kyos quickly. All had some dust but not much, not enough for the system.

He decided to interview Ren's team next.

…..

Tetsu was first, the hulking goateed man with a scary expression genuinely concerned about Aichi. As for the investigation...

"Ren can vouch for us. We were doing a couple matches while we waited, and from what Takudo told us, the panel removal would take time. Besides, it would have to be done by someone on his own."

Kai nodded. "Makes sense." Kai noted the shoes were somewhat dirty, but again not too dirty. "Anything else?"

Tetsu nodded. "I know that there was someone in the arena before anyone. I noticed it when I was walking by. Couldn't make out who, but I saw he had spiky hair."

Kai nodded. That eliminated a LOT of suspects, if that was true, leaving Shin, Miwa, Ren and perhaps Kamue.

…

So he went to those four at once, seeing them together. He began with Kamue. "Well?" He asked the little junior with a big mouth.

"Look Kai, I know what you're thinking and I am in a dollar!"

Everyone blinked. "What?"

Kai sighed. "You mean Innocent."

Kamue, whose language skills were pathetic, nodded. "Yeah that too."

"But Tetsu saw a guy with spiky hair in there, and you have that hair." Ren commented, smiling some. Kai noted that Ren had clean shoes and pants and Kamue had mud all over his.

"What does that mean? Are you stereo texting?"

Everyone groaned. "STEREOTYPING." They all said. Kamue decided he better keep quiet.

Kai then turned to Shin, the green spiky haired manager of the local card shop, who had been quiet this whole time. The store manager stroked assistacat, trying to smile.

"You ok Shin?" Ren asked.

"Jjst... Aichi... he's gonna be unable to do what he loves for a while."

Ren smiled. "You leave that to me. Takudo and I have an idea for that. But for now we got to note how it happened."

Kamue nodded. "Yeah, and Kai will find out who it was!"

Kai noted Miwa and Shin both had clean shoes, but dirty pants. He then smiled. "I think I just did."

…

Kai looked at everyone he had suspected. He tapped his foot once, then approached them, looking at the suspect.

Looking right at Shin.

"Uhhhh... Kai?"

"I just want to know why you did it Shin." He said simply, closing his eyes.

Shin began to sweat as Assistacat growled sadly. But everyone else was shocked.

"Kai... you don't mean..."

"Yes. Shin was the one. he was the only one who could have."

Shin blinked. "But... how did..."

"You were an early arrival. Miwa said so himself. Which means you got here before he did. You also have residue on your pant legs. Your shoes I bet also had it, but you cleaned them."

Shin began to cry. "I... I didn't mean..."

"I know you didn't." Kai said. "If you had, you would have made it a bit less obvious. When even Kyo notices the chasnge in the panel..."

Kyo hmphed. "Make it sound like I always miss stuff."

Misaki turned to her uncle, the purple haired girl placing a hand on his shoulder. "Why uncle?"

Shin sighed. "For a long time I heard how stores are getting motion figure systems. Our store only has the standing fight tables, and that won;t last. So I wanted to see the machine, and how it worked... but as I looked it over, I disconnected the wires on accident. I thought I reattached them the right way!" He placed his face in his hands. "And Aichi got hurt becasue of it..."

Kai nodded. "Yes. So I think next time you want to try a stunt like that, you get some help from one of us."

Takudo smiled. "As for a motion figure system for your shop, I think we can work out a smaller version with small holograms. Ren and I can work on that."

Shin nodded, still blubbering. "It's fine... .I just want Aichi to get better."

Kai smiled. "He will."

…

Shin was arrested later, but only given minor charges, asked to work it off with Ren's company Asteroid. As for Aichi, Takudo was with him, using a virtual helmet connected to his deck to play a game.

"With this new invention, even disabled cardfighters can play. Aichi will be able to train still using that, and it projects the fight into the other helmet as well."

Ren smiled. "And thanks to Aichi's Psyqualia, he can feel like he is right in the battle. It is a major breakthrough."

Kai nodded. "I'm just glad he will be alright. Looks like our fight will have to wait."

Ren turned to Kai. "Why not be a detective while you wait? You sure figured this one out with just a few clues!"

Takudo looked over from his game. "Ren is right Kai, you did well."

Kai considered it. A detective? He had seen others do what he did, and he was good with martial arts if the need ever arose.

He managed a smile. "Perhaps I should. Just... not sure where to begin."

Ren chuckled, looking out the window. "Oh I am sure the way will show itself soon enough." He said, somehow knowing he could be.

…..

As everyone else was settling into their dorms, another male human came into the front door of Typhon Hall.

"Oh, hey Allister," Hiccup said, seeing his fellow university student bringing in a hammock, "Do you really need that? You don't have a roommate, you get two mattresses to yourself, ya know…"

"Ah, you know me," Allister smirked, "I always like to relax, besides, I just got in all the classes I signed up for."

"What did you sign up for?" Abigail asked.

"I got history with Peabody, shop with Dagen, Psychiatry 101 with Vineyard, and stuff for my major," the human explained.

"This year is gonna be good," Peng smiled to Lian, who came back down to the Hall's lounge.

…..

Several weeks had gone by. Peng and the others didn't need too much time to get adjusted to college life. Lian and Peng had talked with the student council about setting up a possible kung fu club, which the council found to be an interesting idea.

For all of the students, the Fall Semester was filled with many surprises and challenges, though they had come to expect these kinds of things. Some classes were a breeze for some people, while other courses proved to be quite the challenge for others.

And then, one day, in early December, it happened.

One evening, after classes, Peng was walking back from a gas station he had gone to buy some snacks that couldn't be found at the campus store.

"This is one of those days I'm happy to be a snow leopard," Peng told himself, watching the snowflakes fall, "I'm sure everyone else is shivering right now…"

All of a sudden, Peng stopped, swearing he could hear an odd noise. "What's that?" he said, swearing he heard voices in the distance, but from what direction, he couldn't tell.

What he heard sounded like a cry for help, but no matter where he looked, Peng could not find the source of the call.

"What was that?" he asked himself, concerned.


	3. A Textbook Example of Crime

**The Toon Files Episode 133: A Textbook Example of Crime.**

The next day, Peng, Bert, Hiccup, Abigail, Allister, Dean, and Gwen were in Professor William Dagen, a human's, shop class.

"Ok class," the instructor smiled to his students, "One week from today is the due date for your final projects. I trust you all have been working on them outside of class, right?"

"Yup," Bert nodded, the raccoon had a lot of skills in shop, he showed off his design.

"A wooden remote control car, I like that," William nodded, he had a fondness for RC vehicles.

"It was the strangest thing that happened last night guys," Peng told his friends.

"What happened?" Gwen asked, having not really been listening in on the conversation until just now.

"Last night, when I was walking back to the dorm, I heard some mysterious shouting, but I couldn't tell where it was from," Peng explained.

Hiccup went wide eyed for a moment, but then he realized what the snow leopard had to have been talking about. "I see," the Viking nodded, "You are the most recent one to encounter one of the local urban legends."

"Urban legends, what are you talking about?" Peng asked.

"I've just heard of them myself recently," Hiccup replied, "Go to the library after class, you'll be able to find out more there."

"They're stupid stories anyways…" Dean commented.

….

Over in the Albright University Student Union building, Lian, Anna, Blu, Kai, Tina, and Zoey were all having breaks between classes in their schedules.

"Hey Professor Vineyard," Anna smiled to the Psych teacher, "Whatcha doing?"

"Eating my lunch," Josie smiled, taking a bite of her sushi.

"Really, you're eating the food this place sells?" Kai snarked.

"Hey, I've been working here for 10 years," Josie said to the college students, "It's only natural that I support the place I work out, besides, the food here is not bad."

Blu saw a bag from the college's supply, snack, and clothing store sitting next to Prof. Vineyard. "You bought a pair of boots, huh?" the bird asked the teacher.

"Yup, but they aren't for me," Josie explained, "They're a gift for someone," she added with a smirk.

"I hope whoever you give them to enjoys it," Lian said, she was in Josie's Psych class and thought she was a great instructor.

"Don't worry, I'm sure they will," Josie nodded to the students, "Now, could you all let me eat?"

"Sure," Lian nodded.

…

After Dagen's shop class, Peng went over to the Readmore Library in Albright University like Hiccup had instructed.

"Is there anything I can help you with?" the librarian, a cat named O.G. Readmore asked Peng.

"Could I get access to one of the computers?" the snow leopard asked.

"Certainly," Readmore replied, "Computer number 12 is open right now."

"Thank you," Peng bowed respectfully, going over and logging into his student account.

"Chances are these aren't going to be on the university website," Peng figured, "I better Google this."

Peng typed in "Urban legends Albright city" into the search engine, hoping to find some results. Luckily for him, he was able to find one page on the subject, but it was taking quite a while to load.

"Frigging DDOS…." Peng thought to himself.

"Looking up mysteries eh?" O.G. Readmore asked the student.

"In a way, yeah," Peng replied with a nod.

"Oh, I love a good mystery store," the feline librarian smiled, "They are always quite the page turner, and they really get the mind thinking."

"I guess so," Peng nodded.

"Why, every weekend I host a Friday night book club," Readmore told Peng, "And just the other week, we had a little mystery happen ourselves. Want to hear about it?"

"Sure," Peng nodded, curious to hear about the story.

….

**New York City, New York, 1986.**

Back in his own world, Cap'n O.G. Readmore hosted a feline book club in one of the alleyways of the City That Never Sleeps. Every week on Friday night, he and some of his friends would get together and discuss books.

Among the members of the club there was the young Lickety, the pretty Kitty Literature, and the high class Wordsy.

"As you all know, tonight there's a special book giveaway," Readmore smiled to the other cats in the club.

"Cool," Kitty smiled, "Do you have the newest Stephen King?" She was quite the horror literature enthusiast.

"Indeed I do have a few copies," Readmore smiled to Kitty.

"You can look into that, I think I'll want to pick up some Agatha Christie," Wordsy said.

Readmore pulled out a long table that had several piles of books that were up for sale. "Feel free to purchase what you want, the more we're reading, the better!"

"Are there any snacks here?" Lickety asked Readmore as he bought 2 copies of Lord of the Rings."

"We do, around the corner," Readmore nodded, "Lots of mice and milk."

"Sweet," Lickety grinned, "I know my sister will love this copy I got her."

….

After a little while, after the sale and after the felines got a chance to stretch their muscles, they met back in the center of the alley to discuss books again.

"Did everyone enjoy the books they picked out?" Readmore asked, taking his seat in what the club had dubbed the "Captain's chair".

"I sure did," Lickety smiled.

"Indeed," Wordsy nodded, taking a sip of tea.

Kitty was looking around the alleyway, looking for something. "This is odd," she commented.

"What's odd, Kitty?" Readmore asked.

"The Stephen King book I bought, I can't find it anywhere," the female feline explained.

"Did you misplace it?" Lickety asked his fellow book club member.

"No, that can't be what happened," Kitty replied to the kitten, "I set it down right on this table before I went to get some snacks. I swear I had put it right here the last time I saw it."

"Well my fellow cats," Readmore smiled, getting up out of his chair, "It looks like we have a mystery on our paws."

"Like the kind Sherlock Holmes solves?" Wordsy grinned.

"Count me in," Lickety nodded, but then he felt a chill, "Just let me put on my jacket first…"

…..

Readmore, Kitty, Lickety, and Wordsy decided to first search for the missing book in the immediate vicinity of the book club's alleyway.

"There is still the possibility that it got knocked over somewhere or maybe it got blown by the breeze," Readmore told the others.

"I doubt that, but we can still look under that assumption," Kitty replied, "This is so weird…."

Lickety and Wordsy began to move around the chairs, blankets, and other books that had littered the alleyway.

"We really should pick this up one day," Wordsy said, pushing a pile of books over to the side.

"Hey, this is an alleyway," Lickety chuckled, "So what if it is a mess?"

"Did you find your copy of the book yet, Kitty?" Readmore asked, helping to pick up the mess in attempt to find the horror novel.

"Not yet O.G.," Kitty replied, "I don't get what happened. I wonder if I'm jinxed or something."

"This is getting to be more like a mystery novel as we go on," Readmore said. He looked across the street from the alleyway.

"Central park is right across from here," Lickety said, "Maybe someone stole it when none of us were looking and took off into the park!"

"Excellent theory Lickety," Readmore complimented, "I think I'll go investigate that one now."

…

Readmore pulled out a magnifying glass and began to walk over to Central Park. "The path around here is kind of muddy," he noted, "So if there was a thief, there's a good chance that he or she may have left some paw prints around here."

Using his feline abilities, Readmore was able to climb up a tree and get a better look at the ground around him.

"Let's see….are there any paw prints around here?" he said to himself, inspecting the scene.

Much to his displeasure, there were none. "So, I was probably right in my first assumption," Readmore smiled to himself, "The book probably just got knocked off the table Kitty set it on and got moved to somewhere that we haven't uncovered yet. Mystery solved."

But as the Captain began to climb down the tree, another thought occurred to him.

It was true, if a thief had tried to take the book from the alleyway and make a getaway into Central Park or down the street, they would have gone over some dirt along the sidewalk or pathway that would have given them a trail to follow. However, that's operating under the assumption that thief, whoever it was, had gotten far away.

Readmore realized that there was the possibility that the thief was someone who was still currently standing around in the alleyway. The possibility that one of the Friday Night Book Club was the one who had swiped the novel from beneath Kitty's paws. There was the chance that the thief was one of his friends.

"When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth," Readmore quoted the famous fictional detective as he headed back towards the alleyway.

….

"Well O.G.?" Kitty asked the head of the book club as he came back into the alleyway.

"Not quite yet, I'm afraid," Readmore replied in a slightly jolly tone, "But I do have a theory as to what could have happened."

"What is it?" Wordsy questioned.

"I believe there is a chance that the thief could be someone standing in this very alleyway as we speak!" he revealed, making all the cats gasp.

"That's crazy!" Lickety said.

"I don't think any of you guys would steal a book from me," Kitty nodded.

"If the thief is someone here," Readmore continued, "There's a high chance that the thief still has the book on their person. May I see all of your book bags please?"

"Sure O.G.," Wordsy nodded, taking his off his back.

"Coming right up, captain," Lickety complied, holding his out and setting it on the ground.

"I'll check yours first, Wordsy," Readmore told the sophisticated cat.

"Go right ahead, you won't find anything suspicious," Wordsy told the head of the book club.

Indeed, Readmore looked inside, and all he was able to find were the Agatha Christie novels Wordsy had purchased at the book sale.

"See, nothing suspicious," Wordsy said confidently.

"Lickety, I'm checking your bag next," Readmore informed.

"Ok," the youngest cat in the club nodded.

Readmore emptied Lickety's book bag, and just like it was the case with Wordsy, all he was able to find was the two copies of Lord of the Rings that he had bought. This were the special editions that came with a lining cover, so Readmore knew there were from the sale that they had just had.

"See, I didn't steal anything," the young cat pointed out.

…..

Readmore was at a loss as to what to do next. It's as if Kitty's novel had vanished into thin air.

"This doesn't make any sense," Kitty said, "Where could the book have gone?"

"That's as good a question as any," Readmore nodded, as he stepped out of the alleyway to give himself some time to think.

The book, wherever it could be, seemed to vanish into a place he was not thinking.

As he was standing, another thought occurred to him. "I better go throw away this candy wrapper," he said, "I don't understand why litter bugs do what they do."

But as he went and through the wrapper in the trash, there was something in the nearby garbage can that caught his eye.

It was the cover lining to Kitty's missing novel! "What is this doing here?" Readmore asked himself. He looked deeper into the trash can, but he could not find the entire book, just the cover.

All of the books Readmore sold have covers like these. "Wait a minute," the bookworm feline realized, "I think everything's coming together now, I think I know who the thief is and how they made the book disappear!"

….

O.G. Readmore went back into the alleyway, this time with a big smirk on his face.

"What's got you so happy Captain?" Kitty asked. She then realized the implications of that expression, "Did you find out what happened to my Stephen King novel?"

"Yes I did Kitty," Readmore nodded, "And from my investigation, I'm confident in saying that I know the identity of the book thief."

"Who was it then?" Kitty asked the leader of the book club.

"The perpetrator of this action is none other than you….Lickety!" Readmore pointed towards the kitten.

"Me?" Lickety gasped, "How could I have taken the book?"

"That's the big trick behind this whole mystery," Readmore explained to his fellow felines, "For a while, we all thought if the book was stolen, that the thief would try to hide it in a spot we wouldn't be able to find. But the actual case was quite the opposite."

"What do you mean by that?" Wordsy asked Readmore.

"What I mean is that Lickety here managed to disguise the book, not make it disappear," Readmore revealed.

"What?" Kitty gasped, confused.

"As you all can recall, the books that were on sale earlier tonight came with this special lining covers, I just found the one for the supposedly missing book in that trash can just outside the alleyway."

"So, what's your point?" Lickety asked nervously.

"My point is that this is how you fooled all of us," Readmore said to the guilty party, "I know you said you bought two copies of the same book so you could give one to your sister, but there's more to it than that, am I right? When everyone was out and about, you took the cover lining off of her novel and replaced it with the cover lining of one of those copies. That way, when I did the book bag inspection earlier, you just needed to show me the book, which, with the fake cover on it, convinced me that I was looking at two of the same books."

"Is that why he bought 2?" Wordsy asked.

"Precisely," Readmore nodded, "He also chose these books in particular because their length was close enough to the novel Kitty has purchased. There was still the risk of someone noticing the difference in size between the books, so he picked one that was as close as he possibly could."

"But where's your proof I did any of this?" Lickety asked nervously.

"I just need to look at those books again," Readmore grinned, "And pay attention to what's inside the binding, and if you aren't the thief, then what I see should be exactly the same as each other, correct?"

Lickety sighed, his trick had been uncovered. "I'm sorry Kitty," he apologized, handing her the book back.

"But why would you try to steal this, Lickety?" Kitty asked the kitten.

"Because I wanted to get a chance to read the book," Lickety explained, "Ever since I started getting into horror books, I wanted to check out Mr. King's word, but Readmore kept telling me that I'm too young to read his stories."

"I'm sorry if you felt I was being restrictive," Readmore apologized to Lickety, he was glad that he had admitted his mistake, "If you like, I could help you find horror stories that would be more appropriate for someone of your own age range."

"You really mean it?" Lickety smiled.

"I mean it," the Captain of the Friday Night Book Club nodded, "Helping someone read is the best joy I can obtain."

…

"Interesting mystery," Peng said as the Albright University librarian finished his story.

"Why thank you," O.G. Readmore replied, going to put more books back on the shelf. Two plush animals who traveled through stories, named Doc Croc and Yoyo were also emerging from a story, quite literally as he did this.

Peng growled seeing that the webpage on the urban legends still hadn't loaded up fully. It was far enough along in the process that he could see their names, so he wrote them down.

They included: The Flying Car, The Bloody Beach, The Missing Seven, The Cries in the Night, and the Vanished Rats.

Peng had no idea that the day was about to take a dark turn very soon…..


	4. Death Drop Distance

**The Toon Files Episode 134: Death Drop Distance.**

Later that day, some of the residents of Typhon Hall were playing pool in their dorm's lounge.

"Zach still hasn't come out of his room, huh?" Lian said, hearing the lizard type calculus equations into his calculator.

"You really can't expect that guy too," Tina said with a smirk, "Especially since word on the street is that he hasn't exactly had the easiest time with his classes this semester."

"He's completely freaking out," Blu nodded, having perched himself on the couch in front of the dorm's main television set.

"I really would prefer not getting criticized now," Zach requested, stepping out of his door for a moment. "Just because none of you are feeling pressure doesn't mean no one is."

"Sorry Zach," Zoey apologized.

"Thank you Zoey," the lizard student replied, stepping back in and locking the door.

"That resolved itself fairly simply," Lian commented.

"Oh, you don't Zach well enough," Tina spoke up with a smirk, the wolf setting down her controller, "When he REALLY gets stressed, we hear him toss and smash things in his room."

"Sounds like he could really use anger management classes," the snow leopardess replied.

"If only they were offered here," Blu commented in response.

"Say, have any of you guys seen Dean?" Bert asked, "Me and him wanted to put the final touches on our shop projects."

"I haven't seen him a few hours," Zoey replied.

…

Over in the student union building, Peng, Gwen, Popka, Anna, Abigail, Hiccup, and Allister were eating dinner after classes.

"It figures," Gwen smirked, "Only when we get near the end of the semester do they start serving food that's better then what Chef Hatchet would make for us back when I was doing Total Drama."

"It's not that bad," Anna replied, "Besides, I like eating things that aren't a royal banquet for every meal. Variety is important in life, you know."

"I don't know, I think this food is great," Hiccup said, devouring a kabob, "It's kinda like what gets served back in my home world."

"So I went to the library earlier to try and find out about those urban legends," Peng told Hiccup.

"And, what did you think?" the Viking replied.

"That's the thing," Peng chuckled, slightly embarrassed, "The computer I tried to look them up on was incredibly slow, all I got to know about them were their titles."

"Did the librarian help you?" Hiccup asked.

"A little," the snow leopard said, slurping some noodles, "But he ended up mostly recounting a mystery he had solved in the past."

Hiccup then looked down at the table, a bad memory coming into his head.

"What's the matter Hiccup?" Umi asked, joining the others at the table.

"It's nothing," Hiccup replied unconvincingly.

"You know from that tone, the rest of us know that it can't be nothing," Gwen pointed out accurately.

"It's just, shortly before I first came to this world for my studies," Hiccup began, "I had to solve a mystery of my own, one I'd rather not like to remember…."

…

**Isle of Berk, 1092.**

There are many different challenges a Viking goes through in his or her own life, but one challenge that Hiccup wasn't expecting, at least not as his age, was to become Chief of his home island following the death of his father during the conflict with the evil Drago Bludvist.

For many years in the past, Vikings and dragons lived in conflict, but for over 5 years now they had been working together ever since Hiccup and his dragon Toothless showed that cooperation was possible.

And Hiccup's friends were among the many dragon riders of Berk. There was his girlfriend Astrid, the chubby but loveable Fishlegs, the twins Tuffnut and Ruffnut, and one of the former members of Drago's army, Eret (son of Eret).

"This is amazing!" Hiccup cheered as he and his friends flew some laps around the island on the backs of their dragons.

"My dragon can outfly yours," Fishlegs teased the others.

"Like, no way could it," Ruffnut replied, she and her twin brother were wearing new riding gear that had been recently developed in the village. It was made of a special material the villagers had dubbed as rubber.

"Can't these guys go one ride without trying to turn it into a competition?" Astrid chuckled.

"We can't," Tuffnut replied.

"Eh, we should let them have their fun," Hiccup said, looking ahead, "Besides," he added, looking at the higher parts of the mountain, "There's a big mist on the way, we should get back to the village."

"Agreed," Eret nodded, having been given Hiccup's father's dragon after Stoick died, they were now a close team.

The Vikings all headed back towards the village.

…

Hiccup was the first to wake up the next morning, and he decided to go outside and watch the sunrise while everything was calm and peaceful, well, by Berk standards anyways.

"What a view," he smiled, looking out at the sun that was rising over the horizon.

But then the tone of things changed very quickly as, all of a sudden, a figure fell from the sky down towards the rocks below!

"What the?!" Hiccup exclaimed, running over to see what had just dropped. When he looked down, he gasped as what he saw.

There, lying bloody and dead on the rocks below, was the body of Tuffnut, he had been killed by the impact of the fall.

"Oh geez," Hiccup gasped, horrified, climbing down to get a better look at the situation.

The Chief of Berk tried first aid methods on his friend, but it was too late, Tuffnut was gone from this world.

"Hey Hiccup," Astrid's voice was calling, she and Ruffnut were walking towards the dragon stables together, "What's going on?"

"Tuffnut, it's…he's.., he's dead, Astrid!" Hiccup exclaimed.

"What?!" Ruffnut gasped, jumping down to get a closer look at her fallen brother, she held him close.

"Ruffnut, I'm sorry," Hiccup said, doing his best to comfort her.

"It's no fair…." Ruffnut frowned, tears forming in her eyes.

"And I still don't know what the heck happened to him…." Hiccup thought to himself.

…..

Since it was still fairly early in the morning and a lot of the other residents of Berk had not yet woken up, Hiccup declared it was best to not let word spread about what had happened until he was able to figure out what exactly had happened to Tuffnut.

Fishlegs and Eret were awake though, each having gone out for an early morning dragon flight.

"Is it true?" Fishlegs frowned to Hiccup, "Is Tuffnut really dead?"

"I'm afraid so," Hiccup nodded sadly. "Right now, I'm trying to figure out exactly what happened to him."

"How so?" Eret asked.

"I was walking through the village a little bit ago," Hiccup explained to his friends, "Wanting to get a good view of the sunrise before I went flying on Toothless. As I was standing by the cliff side, all of a sudden I something fall out of the sky and when I looked down, there was Tuffnut, dead, lying on the rocks."

"So do you think he fell off his dragon by accident?" Astrid asked.

"That's the thing that's been bugging me," Hiccup explained to his friends, "If he did fall off by accident, don't you think his dragon would have noticed that he had fallen off? And even if the dragon didn't notice immediately, don't you think he would've shouted for help as he was falling?"

"Like, what are you getting at man?" Ruffnut asked the Chief of Berk.

"I get the darkest feeling," Hiccup explained to the others regretfully, "That this was no accident. I honestly think someone killed Tuffnut, and it would have to be someone who's still here at Berk as we speak!"

Everyone gasped at that revelation.

…

For the next part of the investigation, Hiccup and the others went to the dragon stables in Berk.

"Why are we going here?" Fishlegs asked.

"For Tuffnut to have fallen from that height and at that location," Hiccup explained to the other Vikings, "The only possible place he could have fallen is from either his dragon or someone else's."

"I see," Astrid realized, "So we're looking for whose dragon can't be found in the stables, am I right?"

"You're right on the mark," Hiccup nodded. He then turned to Eret and Fishlegs. "Did either of you guys see anyone else awake at the time you went on that early morning flight?"

"Umm….let me think," Fishlegs replied, making an honest effort to think as hard as he possibly could, but Hiccup and the others could tell from his expression that this was proving to be quite the challenge for him.

"Um, let me do the talking," Eret said to Fishlegs, giving him a pat on the back. "From what I can recall, when we were walking over to the stables, we didn't see anyone else out of their houses, and most of the dragons were asleep."

"I see," Hiccup nodded, "So it's likely that the killer's dragon may be missing from the stables!"

….

At the dragon stables, Hiccup looked to see what was missing from them.

"It looks like most of them are in order here," he said, looking over the magnificent scaly flying and fire-breathing creatures.

"Are any of them missing?" Eret asked, as he adjusted special gloves he had been given for his 23rd birthday that allowed for better grip while riding hid dragon.

"It looks like just two of them are," Hiccup realized, turning to Eret, "I don't see yours of Fishlegs's dragons in here."

"We already took them out this morning," Eret replied, "We got off of them after 15 minutes so we could let them do some free flying."

"What are you saying Hiccup?" Fishlegs gasped, "Do you honestly think one of us could have been the one who killed Tuffnut?"

"I don't want to make any accusations," Hiccup responded, "But at the same time, I don't want to rule out any possibilities."

He then turned to Astrid, "Who did you see walking around this morning?"

Astrid thought back to the precious last few moments before the body of Tuffnut had been discovered. "I was heading towards the stables, when I saw that you had jumped down towards the rocks, as I went to go see what that was about, Ruffnut caught up with me and we both headed your way."

"So it looks like you two have solid alibis," Hiccup told Astrid and Ruffnut, "Even if you had your dragons zoom down right after pushing Tuffnut off, there's no way either of you could have made it back to the village peak where I was without making it clear you had fallen from the sky."

"Hey what's that smell?" Fishlegs asked, a scent catching his nose.

"Oh, it's probably that special mix of dragon treats my dragon started to like so much," Ruffnut replied, "It's like, totally addicted to it, it always has the munchies for it, ya know?"

"You guys stay here," Hiccup told Eret, Astrid, Ruffnut, and Fishlegs, "I'm gonna go check the scene of the crime one more time before everyone wakes up…."

….

As the sun was gradually rising more and more, Hiccup realized it was only a matter of minutes before all of Berk would be awake and he as Chief would have to deliver the bad news, and Tuffnut's funeral would likely be held the very same day.

He had Hiccup fly him down next to the body again so he could examine the scene of the crime one last time.

"What a nasty fall…." Hiccup groaned, seeing the blood surrounding Tuffnut's body, "At the very least, the pain was over quickly and he didn't suffer…."

As he was looking around, he lost his footing and nearly tumbled into the waters, but he was able to catch himself.

It was then the Hiccup saw something that caught his attention. A short distance away from the body, there was a smashing imprint in the rock formations close by.

"What the heck?" Hiccup asked, realizing that this could not have been a natural phenomenon. "What could have caused this?"

Hiccup thought and figured it could likely have been that the body bounced a bit from where it had first fallen. "But then why is there not blood in this spot?" he asked himself.

But as he asked himself that question, the answer was already coming to him. Suddenly, this mystery was making sense, the clues added up.

"Toothless," he said, turning back to his best dragon friend, "I know who killed Tuffnut."

…

Astrid, Ruffnut, Fishlegs, and Eret came out of the dragon stables and walked towards where Hiccup was.

"Did you find any answers?" Eret asked the young Chief of Berk.

"As a matter of fact I did," Hiccup replied grimly, "I know who killed Tuffnut."

"Who was it?" Astrid gasped.

Hiccup pointed ominously, "The identity of the killer is you…..RUFFNUT!" he revealed.

Everyone gasped and turned to the victim's twin. "How could it have been her?" Fishlegs asked.

"A clever trick," Hiccup replied, "She made use of her dragon to pull it off, but it wasn't just that, I ended up being a pawn in her scheme as well!"

"What do you mean by that?" Eret asked, confused.

"You see, what happened is this guys," Hiccup began to explain, "Ruffnut took off early this morning on her dragon. She was wearing a special suit, the rubber armor that she and her brother had started to wear recently, the armor that offers a lot of protection from impacts…."

Astrid realized where Hiccup was going with this. "You don't mean…" she said.

"Precisely," Hiccup replied, "Who I saw fall out of the sky was not the victim but the culprit herself! With the added protection from the armor, Ruffnut was able to fall a not too long distance. Tuffnut must've been killed sometime last night, and the body was placed there in advance. When I ran over to look over the cliff, seeing the body made me not see her slip away."

"So that's how she was able to join me so fast," Astrid realized.

"But then how could my dragon have ended up back in the stable?" Ruffnut retorted to Hiccup, "You said yourself you would've seen one fly back in after."

"That's the second part of your scheme, Ruffnut," Hiccup explained, "The smell of dragon treats that Fishlegs noticed were the treats you had planted there with the strong scent. You probably gave your dragon a command to wait till everyone was down by the cliff to go back in to the pen. Doing that and appearing right beside Astrid gave you a solid alibi."

"But where's your proof?" Ruffnut demanded to know.

"As Tuffnut's twin," Hiccup retorted, "You're the only other person who can fit into armor of his size. Now if you're sure you're innocent, show us the armor, which should be lacking any impact dents, correct?"

Ruffnut took a step backwards, sad at having been found out.

"But why Ruffnut?" Astrid asked, "Why would you kill your own brother?"

"Because the dragon I'm flying now," Ruffnut began to say, sadly, "Was not the first one I was given. For the first week of being a rider I had a different dragon, and my dragon and his got into little play fights. But he like, told his dragon to get a little more rough in that roughhousing and it ended up dying…I couldn't just forgive him for causing a dragon to lose its life like that, ya know?"

Hiccup, Astrid, Fishlegs, and Eret could only look sadly on the confession of their friend as the other residents of Berk were about to be in for a shock by this news.

….

"So yeah, it's something I'd rather not like to think about," Hiccup told the others in the cafeteria in the student union.

"I'm sorry about that, man," Peng apologized to Hiccup.

"Don't feel bad, you couldn't have known," the Viking assured the snow leopard.

"I've had to deal with murder investigations before," Gwen commented.

"Same here, far too many for someone my age," Abigail nodded. While the woodmouse had enjoyed working with the other toons of the Toon Detective Complex, the concept of constantly investigating crimes that not too uncommonly ended up being murder was never something that she could fully get used to.

"That's a sad story," Allister sighed, "I'm gonna need to go relax to feel better after that."

"Allister, you're always trying to find a place to lie down," Hiccup said with a chuckle.

…..

Across campus, students were walking between classes, and a lot of them, between buildings on this cold snowy December day. As unpleasant as the weather was, most everyone was used to it and it seemed like an ordinary day.

But, in what would be a matter of mere seconds, it would become clear that today was not going to be ordinary.

A fox student walking between classes looked up for a moment and saw a sight that made him shout loudly, anyone standing by a window could hear his call.

Peng and the others quickly looked out the window to see what the commotion.

"Oh god!" Gwen gasped at the sight they saw.

Someone had fallen from the roof of a building to the ground below!


	5. Environmentally Fearsome

**The Toon Files Episode 135: Environmentally Fearsome.**

Peng, Abigail, Gwen, Hiccup, Popka, and Anna ran outside to see what had just happened.

"What on earth was that?" Anna asked, concerned.

The group of friends had made their way to where they saw the person fall, and they were shocked when they saw just who it was.

"Oh god, Dean!" Popka exclaimed, seeing the tiger from Typhon Hall lying on the ground, Peng went up and inspected him.

"He's holding on, he's still alive," he told the others, "If we call an ambulance now he can still make it!"

"Coming right up!" Gwen exclaimed, dialing 911 on her cell phone as she said that.

"You guys take care of him and keep his head up, I gotta see something!" Peng exclaimed, running into the building that Dean had fallen from.

….

Once inside, Peng raced to the higher stories, trying to find whoever he could. The only entrance to the Old Main building was the front one, and in the time between when they saw Dean fall and when they raced over to him, they did not see anybody come out of the building.

"If this wasn't an accident," Peng said to himself, "Then the culprit still should be here!"

Peng ran around the halls of the building, trying to find any trace of personnel. But at these hours of the day, the upper floors were not really used, and any of the professors who had classes or their offices up here currently weren't there.

"What the?" Peng asked, unable to find anyone. The only person he had seen at all was Kai walking through the connecting corridor, and he knew the card fighter would not be the type of person to do this thing.

After a few more minutes of looking, Peng went back outside.

"Did you find anything?" Hiccup asked.

"No, there was no signs of any suspicious characters," the snow leopard replied, "This may have just been an accident after all…"

"Or maybe," Gwen theorized, "It was a suicide attempt."

As the ambulance came to take Dean to the hospital, Abigail asked "What did you mean by that?"

"He wasn't exactly the smartest student," Gwen pointed out, "And since it really sounded from what I hear that he was failing his exams, maybe he didn't want to face the possibility of failure head on."

"Let's just hope he makes it…." Hiccup said.

….

Back in Typhon Hall, the others could not see what the commotion was as the ambulance was driving away from the college.

"I wonder what's going on out there," Blu said, looking out the window of his dorm.

"Hope nobody got hurt," Zoey commented, adjusting her hairclips.

"Frigging blue shell," Tina frowned, playing the newest Mario Kart game online.

Bert meanwhile, was applying the final touches to his project for shop class. "This is a Bert Raccoon original," he grinned proudly to the others around him.

"You must really like bike riding huh?" Lian asked.

"Oh yeah," Bert nodded, "Back in the Evergreen Forest I liked to be in all kinds of races with my friends, they're always so cool. In fact, there was one race I had recently that really stuck out for me."

"What made it like that?" Lian asked next.

"Because a mystery happened during it," Bert revealed.

…

**The Evergreen Forest, 1989.**

Bert Raccoon was the houseguest of his good friends Ralph and Mellissa Raccoon, who were a married couple. They lived in a tree in the beautiful Evergreen Forest.

Things weren't always so peaceful, however, as Cyril Sneer, an aardvark businessman, was constantly trying to tear down the forest. Despite their disagreements, the Raccoons were good friends with Cyril's son Cedric, and even Cyril himself had occasionally shown a softer side from time to time.

Today was the annual Evergreen Forest River Boat race. Bert, Mellissa, Ralph, Cyril, Cedric, and Ralph and Mellisa's niece Lisa.

"Hey Lisa," Bert smiled, holding something behind his back, "I made you a little gift."

"How nice Bert, what is it?" Lisa smiled.

"It's a bracelet," Bert grinned, handing it to her, "I hope you like it."

"Oh Bert, it's cute," Lisa replied, I think I'll wear it in the race," she put it down in her wooden boat.

Ralph and Mellissa were racing as a couple, and all of the contestants were in small wooden boats…..except for Cyril, who showed up in a big motorboat.

"That has to be against the rules," Ralph said.

"Nope," Cyril sneered, "This is a boat, and this race is for boats, last time I checked."

"I'm afraid he has a point," Mellissa admitted.

"Tell you what, I'll go slow, by this boat's standards," Cyril chuckled to the other contestants in the race.

"Thanks pop," Cedric nodded.

….

A few minutes later, the race began. To no one's surprise, Cyril got an early lead because of his fancy boat.

"Don't give up," Mellissa smiled to Ralph, "If we paddle as hard as we can, we may just have a chance!"

"See you all at the finish line!" Cyril called mockingly.

"He really is a poor sport, isn't it?" Bert called to Cedric.

"My pop can get like that," Cedric admitted.

As the race went on, they came to a big U-shaped curve in the river's path with a big island space between the two. The current standings for the race were Cyril in 1st, Ralph and Mellissa in 2nd, Bert in 3rd, Lisa in 4th, and Cedric currently in last place. There was a noticeable gap between each of the racers.

…..

A few minutes later, Bert, rowing ahead, noticed that Ralph and Mellissa had stopped rowing their boat, and Cyril's boat had stopped moving to.

"What happened?" Bert called, "Did he run out of gas?" he chuckled.

"It's not that Bert," Ralph replied, "Cyril says someone hit him on the back of the head!"

"Ugh…." Cyril groaned in pain, resting on one of the back seats in his boat, "I need a nap….."

"Just keep your head elevated," Ralph advised as Cyril began to doze off.

"Did he say who did it to him?" Bert asked as he climbed onto the boat to join his fellow raccoons.

"No, he said he didn't see anyone climb onto his boat, and he also said he didn't hear anyone climb on," Mellissa explained.

Suddenly, a cocky smirk came to Bert's face. There were many jobs he had tried his hand in, and this would be another opportunity to test a new skill.

"Then it's up to Detective Bert Raccoon to solve this mystery!" Bert announced, "Do any of you happen to have a magnifying glass on you?"

"No Bert, I'm afraid we didn't," Mellissa replied.

…..

Now having to work with a lack of resources Bert thought common to a detective (including a tweed Holmes cap), Bert began to carefully look over the whole of the boat in an effort to find clues.

"Look here guys," he told Ralph and Mellissa, "I found these lying on the floor." He showed the small objects to the couple.

"Those are screws," Ralph said, "Where could they have come from?"

"That's a good question," Bert replied, "Most of this boat, as much as it's probably not the best to be driving in these waters, looks physically intact."

"Except for his chair here," Mellissa noted, "Though maybe the top part flexes this way to allow for more neck movement for more laidback drivers."

Bert looked up towards the forest that surrounded the river on both sides. "There are some pretty tall trees here," he pointed out to Mellissa and Ralph, "Perhaps someone tossed something at him from up there. Doing that, the culprit would be able to hit him without ever climbing onto the boat."

"If that's the case, then whatever object was tossed at him should still be in this boat," Ralph pointed out.

"You're really taking the fun out of this detective job," Bert said to his friends. But as they were talking, a theory began to form in Bert's head. "How long were you guys on this boat before I showed up?"

"A good 5 minutes or so," Ralph replied.

"Wow, I was that slow," Bert realized, "But, and I'm just throwing this out as a possibility, what if you two were working together to use a scheme and since you're married, you'd obviously cover for each other."

"Bert, how could you accuse us of something like that?" Mellissa frowned, "You know Ralph and I would never resort to violence."

"And besides, he was already hurt when we caught up to him, that's why the boat was stopped," Ralph nodded.

"I'm sorry guys," Bert apologized.

…

A few more minutes later, Lisa caught up to the others. "Is the finish line this early?" she asked her fellow raccoons.

"Someone hurt Cyril," Mellissa explained to her niece.

"That's horrible," Lisa replied, "Do we know who did it?"

"That's what Bert is trying to find out," Ralph responded.

Bert took out a snorkel that he found in a compartment on Cyril's boat.

"What are you going to do with that Bert?" Lisa asked as she climbed onto Cyril's boat.

"I'm going to go diving for clues," Bert grinned, as he jumped into the river, making a splash.

"Careful Bert, you're making the boat rock!" Ralph called.

….

Once he was down below in the waters of the river, Bert began to look for clues.

"Maybe whatever hit Cyril bounced off him and landed in the river," the raccoon in his early 20s theorized.

Bert was a good swimmer and he had the ability to hold his breath for a significant period of time, so he only had to surface for air every once in a while.

"There has to be something down here," Bert thought to himself, hoping to find a clue.

Eventually, a few feet in front of where the boat had stopped, Bert was able to see something that was a little out of the ordinary. There were two big rocks lying on the bottom of the river. They were out of place because they were the only rocks of this size lying down in these parts, and add to that, rocks of this size and shape did not rest on the sides of the forest right by this part of the river.

"This could what was used," Bert thought to himself with a smirk, but then he realized something else, "No, that can't be it, these kinds of rocks would sink right to the bottom of the river. There's no angle if they were dropped onto Cyril that could cause them to end up down here in this spot."

Keeping the two big rocks in his mind as a possible clue, Bert surfaced for good.

"Find anything down there?" Ralph asked.

"Something that could be important," Bert replied, "But I wanna go find Cedric and ask him some questions."

…..

Carefully maneuvering the trees in the island that formed the U-shaped turn in the river, Bert was trying to find where Cedric was.

"Did he just give up on the race?" Bert asked himself, when he noticed a very tired Cedric. The son of Cyril Sneer was not the most athletic aardvark, and he had tired himself out very quickly trying to row his boat by himself.

"Hey Bert, is the race over?" Cedric called to his friend.

"Well, no one crossed the finish line," Bert replied, "But it seems like someone hit your dad on the head and knocked him out cold."

"That's terrible," Cedric frowned, "Did you find out who did it?"

"That's what Detective Bert Raccoon is attempting to figure out," Bert grinned with confidence, though he still wasn't sure of what direction to take the investigation in.

But Bert was about to get the smoking gun he needed when he saw something lying on the side of the river. "Is that another boat?" he asked surprised, swimming over to it.

"That isn't yours?" Cedric questioned.

"No, it isn't," Bert replied, as he looked inside. It looked exactly like all the other boats being used in the race.

And then he saw a small object lying in the corner of the boat. When he noticed it, everything became clear to Bert.

"I know what happened," Bert said to himself, getting ready to confront the culprit.

…

Bert made his way back to Cyril's boat where Ralph, Mellissa, and Lisa were.

"You look like you found something out Bert," Mellissa noted.

"Yup, that's exactly it Mellissa," Bert nodded, "I know who knocked out Cyril Sneer!"

"Who did it?" Ralph asked.

"As much as I hate to say this," Bert began, "The culprit of this case is you….Lisa!"

"Me?" Lisa gasped, "How could I have done this?"

"By tampering with Cyril's boat ahead of time," Bert began. "I wondered why the screws from Cyril's seat were lose, and after my investigation I realized they were like that so you could use the loose seatback to hit him hard on the head!"

"How did she pull that off?" Ralph asked next.

"By creating two really big splashes," Bert explained to his fellow raccoons next, "Going underwater, I uncovered two big rocks lying at the bottom of the river. Lisa got off her boat and raced across the island so she could beat Cyril to this particular spot. By dropping these rocks in from such a height, they would make waves that would cause his speedboat to bounce in the water, and bouncing like that made his seatback hit him square on the noggin!"

"But there wouldn't be enough time for her to do that Bert," Mellissa pointed out, "Going at the speeds we were able to row our boats at, if she took a detour across the island and then getting back to her boat, she should have showed up much later then she did here!"

"That was the next part of her trick, and quite simple to explain, too," Bert continued, "She had a second boat prepared for this exact purpose. Sometime yesterday or maybe even earlier today, she hid it somewhere on the island just out of our sight. Once she caused Cyril to get hit, she went to the second boat which was hidden in a spot further down the U-turn, and doing that she'd give herself an alibi."

"But how does that all mean that I have to be the one behind this?" Lisa asked, "No offense to any of you, but you guys all could've performed the same trick."

"That's very true Lisa," Bert nodded, "However, there is one very tiny piece of evidence that proves you're the culprit."

"And that is?" Lisa asked with a frown.

"The bracelet I gave you," Bert revealed, "When I went to catch up with Cedric, I found the boat you had started the race with put on the island from when you navigated the trees. Upon closer examination of it, I was able to see the bracelet I had made for you lying in the corner, I guess you didn't notice that it had fallen off, or maybe you set it down so it wouldn't get wet."

"By why would you do this Lisa?" Mellissa asked her niece.

"I was angry at Mr. Sneer," Lisa began to explain, "These waters are pretty pure and devoid of pollution, but if he started driving and racing those kinds of boats around in this, the pollution would eventually start to happen."

"I'm sorry Lisa," Cyril replied with a yawn as he began to wake back up, "You're right, I probably should have thought about things before I bought this boat."

"Is there anything I can do to apologize, I realize now I shouldn't have hurt you," Lisa said.

"Just an ice pack would be nice," Cyril smiled, and everyone began to chuckle.

….

"That's a mystery I had to solve," Bert explained in the present to Lian.

"That's a pretty crazy story," Lian nodded, looking out the windows in the Typhon Hall lounge. "It's weird…."

"What's weird?" Blu asked the snow leopardess.

"Peng and some of the others should be back here right now, I know a lot of them don't have classes at this hour…"

"Maybe something came up unexpectedly," Zoey suggested.

"You're probably right," Lian nodded, "I'm probably overthinking this."

Of course, Lian and her friends were about to find out what was truly going on around them….


	6. Tropical Punch

**The Toon Files Episode 136: Tropical Punch.**

Peng, Hiccup, Gwen, Abigail, Popka, and Anna were still investigating the scene of where Dean had fallen from the roof.

"So there really were no signs of suspicious figures on the top floors?" Gwen asked Peng.

"No, there wasn't," the snow leopard replied, "And if I recall correctly, when we saw him fall I couldn't see anyone on the roof with him, either."

"Of course, coming from my line of work," Abigail spoke up, "There's the possibility that someone pulled off a clever trick to make him fall."

"Let's be happy that we know he just may make it," Anna said to the others.

"What can we do now?" Popka asked the others, "If this was just an accident, what else is there for us to do?"

"I think I'm gonna go to one of the computer labs in Tenzin Hall," Peng said to his friends.

"What are you going to look up there?" Hiccup asked his friend.

"I want to look into those urban legends you told me about," Peng replied, "I know for a fact I heard mysterious moaning the other day, and I'd hate to leave a loose end like that not checked into."

"Good luck," Anna said, "I hear it's a scary story," she added in a playfully scary tone.

….

Back in Typhon Hall, Professor Dagen knocked on the entrance door.

"Ah, glad you showed up professor," Bert grinned, "I completed my final project ahead of schedule."

"Excellent," William smiled in reply, looking around the building, "it's funny, in the few years I've been working here I haven't stepped back into this hall even though this was the dorm I lived 4 years of my life in."

"So you're the kind of person who likes to take trips down memory lane, huh?" Kai said as he got back into the dorm, "I dropped that letter off at the financial aid office, like you asked."

"Thank you Kai," the shop professor replied. He began to look around the dorm he had lived in in his youth.

"Oh joy," Blu sighed sarcastically.

"What's up Blu?" Bert and Lian asked.

"It's starting to snow again," the spix michaw informed, "I knew before I ever came to this college I should have taken a closer look at local weather patterns."

"Well, I don't mind the snow," Lian grinned cheekily.

"That's because you're used to it," Blu responded.

"You have a point there," Lian replied, still smirking as ever.

"So how have your finals gone?" Tina asked her friends.

"I know I passed biology," Lian informed, "And I completing acing psychology."

"All the sciences, I got covered," Blu nodded.

"And yet snow is still so much of a problem for you," Lian teased the bird.

"I'm just not used to this kind of weather, even when I lived back in Minnesota. This has been the craziest time I've had since I got hit by a boxing glove back in Rio."

"You got what?" Bert asked, "How did that happen?"

"Let me tell you," Blu said to his dorm mates, "Just promise not to laugh."

….

**Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2014.**

They say opposites attract, and that is definitely the case with Blu and Jewel, two (who they thought for a time were the last) spix's macaw birds. Blu had lived with his human owner Linda in Minnesota until they discovered that he was not the last of his kind in the world. He was moved to Rio de Janeiro where he met Jewel, who he and she would eventually become mates.

Sometime later, they had 3 children and discovered that there was a whole flock of spix's macaws living in the Amazon jungle, so they went there and reunited with Jewel's biological family. Though it took Blu quite a while to prove himself to Jewel's father, he was finally able to earn his respect, and the spix's macaw family made their new home in the Amazon, though they travelled back to Rio for the summers. This being the Summer, they had gone back there.

….

"Ah, I love the music," Blu smiled as he flew with his family back to their summer home.

"You've really improved your dancing abilities, dad," Carla, one of Blu and Jewel's children complimented.

"Thank you Carla," Blu nodded, as the family flew over the beaches of Rio.

"Do the guys know we're back today?" Jewel asked, referring to Rafael, Nico, and Pedro, 3 local birds who had introduced Blu to his new home when he first arrived.

"As far as I know, they don't," Blu surprised, when he suddenly gained a smirk on his face, "Let's go surprise them," he suggested.

"You can do that," Jewel said, "I'll take the kids looking for some healthy foods. I'm not gonna let you make them pancakes every day."

"Curses, foiled again," Blu chuckled, as he began to fly towards his friends' usual hangouts.

Once Blu was flying by himself, he enjoyed just feeling the breeze blow between his wings. For many years in his life, Blu had not been a flying bird, but ever since he discovered how to do it, it was wonderful for him.

However, this particular flight was about to be interrupted. At one point, when Blu looked up and saw something falling towards him.

"What the?!" he exclaimed, seeing a big boxing glove fall from the higher buildings down towards him. It hid him head on, and sent him spiraling down.

…..

"Ugh!" Blu groaned, as he hit the ground. Luckily, it was not enough to cripple his wings. "What the heck was that?!" he asked, as the boxing glove rolled into a hole that had been dug for a nearby garden.

The spix's macaw began surveying his immediate surroundings to determine what had happened to him. "Ok, let's see here," Blu said, pulling out a calculator and notepad he had brought with him, he was one to believe in being prepared. "Based on the speed that that was falling, it most likely fell from a height of over 40 feet. From what I remember about these parts, there's no professional or even amateur boxers living in this neighborhood, so leads me to the theory that someone dropped this boxing glove on me deliberately!"

Hoping that the culprit would still be in the immediate area, Blu flew straight up and began to see if there were any other birds or just other animals or even humans on the nearby rooftops.

In what proved to be not too much of a surprise for Blu, he was not able to see anyone right above where he saw the glove fall from.

However, when he went up to go check, the spix's macaw found he was not completely devoid of leads. Not too far all, albeit in 3 separate directions, were his friends from Rio. There was Rafael the Toco Toucan, Pedro the red-crested Cardinal, and Nico, the yellow canary.

"No way," Blu thought to himself, as he began to hypothesize what could have been the cause of what happened to him, and in those hypotheses, he was creating a list of suspects. And while these three guys were his friends, having seem some detective programs both while living in Minnesota and here in Rio, he knew you couldn't rule anyone out.

…..

"Oh hey Blu!" Rafael waved his wing as he saw his spix's macaw friend flying towards him, "You and the family back from the Amazon?"

"Yeah, we just got back today," Blu nodded, "But there are some questions I want to ask you Rafael."

"What kind of questions?" the toucan replied.

"Well, you see, just a few minutes ok, I got hit by a boxing glove that came falling out of the sky!" Blu revealed.

"That sounds like some kind of crazy divine retribution," Rafael commented.

"I was wanting to know if you saw anyone suspicious," Blu said to his friend next, "I'm trying to figure out who did this to me so that I can make them apologize."

"Let me think," Rafael said, taking a moment to ponder what he had seen recently. "As far as I can recall my friend, I didn't see any weirdos, and even among the guys I know there weren't any birds over here, everyone else is hanging around the beaches today."

"I see," Blu nodded, "And were you always over here for the past 5 minutes."

"I'm pretty sure I was," Rafael chuckled, "Wait, do you think I could have done this?"

"Between you, Pedro, and Nico, you are the biggest," Blu commented, "You'd have enough muscle to carry a boxing glove and drop it from a great height!"

"That's a crazy theory," Rafael chuckled, "Besides, you know I would never do such a thing. You should go talk to the other guys."

"Ok I will," Blu nodded, "Don't go anywhere."

"Not till the party later tonight," Rafael replied, "You, Jewel, and the kids are all invited."

…

Blu flew a little distance over and came across Pedro. The plump bird was practicing his dancing. He and Nico were a team who liked to put new acts together for every year's Carnival celebration.

"All right, kick it to the beat," Pedro smirked to Nico, both birds were trying to moonwalk across the stone walls.

"I think you would have some better balance if you took the dirt out of your talons," Nico said to Pedro.

"You may have a point there," Pedro chuckled, the Cardinal shaking them to the beat of the music to make even such a small task be part of dance practice.

"Hey guys," Blu waved his wing to his friends.

"Blu, what are you doing here?" Pedro smiled.

"Jewel, the kids and I just got back this morning," Blu explained, "I got to say, I'm getting used to the Amazon. I don't think I'll ever fully get used to being so close to all those carnivores, but it can be fun."

"We're just preparing for the Carnival," Nico grinned.

"But isn't that over half a year away?" Blu pointed out.

"It's never too early to start preparing for Carnival, it's the celebration of the year!" Pedro cheered. "Say, how'd you get that shiner?"

"That's what I wanted to talk to you guys about," Blu said to them next, "As I was flying over here, someone dropped a boxing glove right onto me!"

"Ouch, that's gotta hurt," Nico groaned.

"And I don't think it was an accident," Blu said to them next, "I think someone nearby could've dropped it on me, and as far as I know, you guys are both suspects."

Nico and Pedro paused, and then they both broke into laughter. "You really think it could've been one of us?" Pedro asked.

"Look at us," Nico said next, "Do you think birds as small as us could drop something heavy like a boxing glove on you?"

"You two may have a point," Blu nodded in response, "But I'm still going to look for clues. Stay here."

"Don't worry about that, we're focusing on the music," Pedro nodded.

…..

Blu figured that the next best place to look for clues would be to go back to where the boxing glove had fallen.

"At least no one moved it since it fell," the spix's macaw said to himself, fluttering down to get a closer look, "There has to be a clue somewhere on this."

Blu then pushed on the boxing glove to be sure of its true weight. Indeed, it was fairly heavy by bird standards. Only Rafael would have enough muscle to drop something like this was what he was able to theorize, though Pedro and Nico would each be able to just barely push it along.

However, it was then that he noticed something odd about the boxing glove. There was two holes that looked like they were clawed into it.

"These don't look man made," Blu noted, taking a closer look at what had conked him on the head.

Upon getting a closer look at the holes, he saw that they were indeed made by talons, and from their position it didn't look like where it was being gripped from.

A grin appeared on Blu's face as he saw this. "I know what happened," he chuckled.

….

Blu flew back over to where Pedro and Nico were practicing and searching for talent for next year's Carnival.

"You're back soon Blu," Nico said, "Did you have an act you want to try out for us?"

"It's not that," Blu replied, "I came back because I figured out who dropped a boxing glove on me."

"You did?" Pedro chuckled, "Who was it?"

"Upon doing some examinations and using deductive reasoning," Blu began, "The culprit most likely is you…..Pedro!"

"Me?" Pedro chuckled, "I think you got hit harder on the head then you thought, man."

"You managed to have me fooled Pedro," Blu began to explain, "I thought that whoever did this had to have dropped the boxing glove onto me. What I didn't consider was the possibility that the culprit was hiding inside the boxing glove!"

"What the heck?" Nico asked, confused.

"Here's what happened," Blu told his audience, "The boxing glove was already on top of the building above where I got clobbered. Pedro hid inside, and then using his talons, he clawed two holes to use as eye holes so he could see."

"What would I need to see?" Pedro asked.

"See where I was," Blu replied in deduction, "The boxing glove didn't fall randomly, you were able to control the direction it fell by hiding inside. You know that once you hit the ground and rolled into the hole, I would focus on looking up. While I was doing that, I was unwittingly giving you the perfect chance to climb out of the boxing glove and find a spot where I wouldn't notice you until a little bit afterwards."

"That's a very clever story," Pedro nodded, "I wouldn't be surprised if it's of the quality of something you saw on a tv detective show. But, as you should be aware of from watching those kind of shows, you have to have proof. Where's your proof that I was the one who dropped the glove? Nico or Rafael could've done the same thing, ya know."

"Your plan was almost perfect," Blu nodded, "But you made one little mistake that you didn't realize until it was too late. You had dirt stuck in your talons, which Nico pointed out. You probably didn't count on getting them a bit dirty as you climbed out of the boxing glove, did you?"

Pedro sighed, and then he began to chuckle. "You got me, Blu."

"Why would you do this to me?" Blu wanted to know.

"Because you've been gone so long man," Pedro chuckled, "You've missed out on a lot of fun, not to mention jokes, here."

"I think I'll settle for the parties when it comes to fun," Blu replied, able to forgive his friend for what had happened.

"That's what I'm talking about," Rafael grinned.

"Let's go to the party," Jewel said, she and the kids had found Blu, "Though if you want to rest dear, I can understand."

"Don't worry, I'm up for a celebration," Blu nodded to his family.

…

"So yeah, that's what happened to me back in Rio," Blu told the animals and humans he had been going to college with, "And once we had learned about all these other worlds, Jewel and I both wanted to expand our educations, though she got accepted into another college."

"But still, a dropped boxing glove, that's just weird," Bert said, as Prof. Dagen finished looking over the raccoon's final project for the semester.

"Believe this Bert, you'll be getting a high grade," William told Bert.

"Sweet," Bert grinned, as the professor left Typhon Hall to get back to his other tasks.

A little while later, Abigail, Hiccup, Gwen, Anna, and Popka came back into the dorm, each wearing heavier jackets to protect themselves against the snow and the cold.

"Where have you guys been?" Bert asked his friends, "Was there a party in one of the other dorms and we weren't invited?"

"It's not that," Anna replied, "Dean fell from the roof of the old main building!"

"What?!" Everyone in the lounge gasped.

"We managed to call 911 just moments after he fell," Gwen explained to everyone else, "Though if he'll make it is still up in the air at the moment."

"That's horrible," Blu said. Even though the tiger had been a braggart often, he wasn't a straight up jerk, and no one in Typhon Hall really disliked him.

"From what we found it looks like it was just an accident or suicide attempt," Popka explained, "So at least it's over for now."

Popka had no idea how wrong he was going to be proven later that night.


	7. The Fallen Warrior

**The Toon Files Episode 137: The Fallen Warrior.**

Later that evening, in Typhon Hall, Anna heard a knock on the front door of the whole hall. "It's Professor Vineyard," the princess of Arrendelle said as she looked out the window.

"I wonder what she's doing here," Tina said, not taking her eyes off her game.

"Thank you Anna," Josie said, as she kicked the snow off her boots.

"What brings you here?" Lian asked the Albright University Psychology teacher.

"I heard about what happened to Dean earlier today," Josie explained to the students, "I wanted to check on you all and see how you're holding up."

"Thanks for coming by," Hiccup told Josie.

"Don't mention it," Josie replied, "I've helped others through hard times before."

"Hey, have any of you guys seen Allister?" Gwen asked, "He was with us when we saw Dean fall, but he didn't follow us over to him."

"I'm right here," Allister replied, revealing he was sleeping on one of the other couches in Typhon Hall, "I went to get the campus nurse after what we saw, but by the time I got back the ambulance had already arrived."

"I'll go see if anyone else needs some counseling through this," Josie offered, going up the stairs to the higher floors.

"That's horrible what happened to Dean," Bert commented, getting a soda from Typhon Hall's vending machine.

"Hey, where's Peng?" Lian asked Abigail and Gwen, "He was with you guys, wasn't he?"

"He went into the Tundra Hall," Abigail explained, "He said he wanted to get to the computer lab and look up some articles."

"About what?" Blu asked, grabbing a blanket lying on the ground and wrapping himself in it.

"Those local urban legends we've heard about this place," Hiccup explained, "He's really taken an interest in them."

…

Peng had gone to the Dagnino Hall (named after the tiger king himself) computer lab to look up the articles he had tried to find in the library earlier.

After a few clicks and going back to the webpage he had found earlier, Peng was getting better results this time.

"Let's see here," the snow leopard commented, looking up the files. "The Cries in the Night-For several months now, at various places around the city of Albright, witnesses have claimed hearing mysterious shouts. The Bloody Beach-One day, a group of 4 friends swimming on a beach on the city's lakeside region came out of the water, cut in various places, yet there were now sharks or any aquatic life capable of causing such bite marks.

Peng wished that the website would have provided names, so he tried Googling some of the stories so that he could see if there was any truth to them.

"You're in here late, Peng," Mr. Peabody, a super genius canine and one of the university's history professors commented, walking into the computer lab.

"Oh, hey Prof. Peabody," Peng replied to the dog, "I'm just doing some research."

"For your finals?" Peabody smiled.

"No, I finished my last one today," the young snow leopard grinned proudly, "I'm just looking up things to solve a little mystery."

"Ah, mysteries," Peabody smiled, "Why, I solved one of the murder variety myself one time when I was traveling with my boy Sherman. Would you want to hear about it?"

"Sure, let's hear it," Peng said.

Peabody began to recount the tale.

….

**Osaka, Japan, 1632.**

Peabody and his adopted son Sherman were experts on history. Not just because they read a lot of books, but they were able to experience it themselves through a time machine Peabody had developed called the WABAC. While they had met several famous historical figures like George Washington, Isaac Newton, and Beethoven, they liked to also just visit random moments in history at certain places.

"Ah, old Japan," Peabody said as he and Sherman stepped out of the WABAC.

"Uh, Mr. Peabody," Sherman said, sounding concerned, "It says here the WABAC is almost out of power, should we be worried?"

"Nothing to worry about Sherman," Peabody replied, pulling an invention out of his pocket, "This is a spare energy source, it'll be able to charge the WABAC up overnight. We'll just need a place to spend the night."

"You two say you need a place to stay?" a female voice asked, as a local to the time period approached them. "My name is Ako Higekata, and my home has some rooms for guests."

"Thank you mam," Sherman smiled, "Where is your home?"

"Along the mountainside by that waterfall," Ako pointed, "There's also my husband Juzoo, son Akira, and brother in law Hiroshi."

"Juzoo Higekata, I believe he works for one of the local shoguns," Peabody recalled as they entered the decent sized home by the cliff.

….

"I'll be practicing my combat in my room," Juzoo told his wife, "Do not disturb me."

"Yes," Ako nodded.

"Father's gotten really less joyful after my mother died," Akira told Peabody and Sherman.

"Then Ako here's his second wife?" Peabody asked the warrior's son.

"Yes I am," Ako nodded, "His first wife was a good friend of mine."

"Wow, you can see the waterfall go over the cliff side," Sherman awed.

"Yes, in fact a lot of the floorboards in this home are made of draining boards in case water pours into here, and it allows us to see the fish that swim under," Hiroshi informed.

…

Later that evening, Peabody and Sherman were shown to the guest bedroom in the Higekata house.

"Thanks again for letting us stay the night," Sherman said to Ako.

"Don't mention it," Ako replied.

"It seems this family spends their nights in separate rooms that are all locked," Peabody commented, "They must surely be close," he added with sarcasm.

In the middle of the night however, everything suddenly changed when all of a sudden, a big bang was heard.

"What was that?" Sherman asked, waking up with a start.

"Sherman, stay here," Peabody instructed, as he ran out of the room and saw Ako, Hiroshi, and Akira knocking on the door to Juzoo's room. "He's not opening up," Ako informed.

"Let me handle this," Peabody said, taking a kung fu stance. The genius dog was, among many other areas of skill, a kung fu expert. With a swift kick, he knocked the door down.

Peabody, Ako, Hiroshi, and Akira looked inside. Across at the other side of the room was a big hole in the wall, and above them was Juzoo….hanging from a noose, dead!

"Father!" Akira gasped as Hiroshi and Ako screamed. Peabody quickly ran over to the body to see if there was still any hope of saving him.

"Is he still alive?" Akira asked as Peabody did an examination on the warrior.

Peabody checked for a pulse, and frowned. "I hate to inform all of you this, but I'm afraid Juzoo has passed away."

"NO!" Ako gasped, falling to the ground in shock, "How could this happen?!"

"Did he hang himself?" Hiroshi asked next, looking on the rope noose.

Peabody took another look at the dead body. "That's definitely what appears to have happened," the dog informed the Higekata family, "However, I'm not 100 percent sure if that is the truth of what happened."

…..

"What do you mean by that?" Akira asked after Mr. Peabody's rather ominous quote, "Do you think someone murdered my father?"

"There's a chance that is the case, yes," Peabody nodded, "if he had hanged himself, since the ceiling in this room is kind of high, he would have to have stood on something to reach the beam the rope was tied to. The fact there's no objects that could be stood on next to the body give me the assumption that someone killed him and slipped up on that particular detail."

"But there are two things wrong with the idea that this could be murder," Hiroshi commented.

"And those are?" Peabody asked.

"If someone did kill my brother, how did they escape from this locked room?" the brother of the victim asked.

"Through this hole in the wall," Peabody pointed out.

"I don't think someone could," Akira said, "Look down, right below that hole in a massive fall that someone would be unlikely to survive."

"Someone could carefully try to cross to the balcony of Ako's room right across from here, but that would take a few minutes, especially if they tried to climb through the gap in the ceiling."

"Mr. Peabody, what's going on…oh," Sherman called as he got a look at Juzoo's body.

"Sherman, don't look," Peabody advised his boy.

"Secondly," Hiroshi said next, "When you knocked down the door, his body was still swaying, which would imply he had hung himself only moments ago, am I right?"

"That would not be an inaccurate assumption," Peabody nodded.

"As soon as we heard that loud noise, we all came running out of our rooms immediately. None of us took any longer, correct?" Hiroshi pointed out.

"Exactly," Peabody nodded again.

"Then none of us could have murdered my brother," Hiroshi said, "What happened here is tragic, but it's just a suicide, that's all."

…

Sherman walked up to Peabody as Ako and the others were beginning to work on funeral plans.

"It's sad that that man killed himself," Sherman told Peabody.

"I wish that could be the case Sherman," Peabody replied, "But I am getting more and more suspicious of the likely truth that what happened here tonight was a murder."

"A murder?" Sherman asked, confused, "I heard what that Hiroshi guy said, how could it have been a murder?"

"Look at the floorboards below you Sherman," Peabody pointed out, "There was something I noticed that was odd about this room that is not in any of the other rooms."

"What is it Mr. Peabody?" Sherman asked, adjusting his glasses so he'd be able to get a better look.

"There seems to be clay in several gaps on the floorboards," Peabody explained, pointing to a small but still visible amount of the substance lying on the ground.

"Maybe they just put it there because they were getting worried about holes in the ground?" Sherman suggested.

"That might be a possibility Sherman, if it weren't for the fact that if you touch the clay, you'll find it was applied quite recently."

"Hey you're right Mr. Peabody," Sherman confirmed, picking some of the clay up, it hadn't quite dried yet.

"And if it was a suicide," Peabody continued, "What would be the point of making this hole in the wall. Sure, Hiroshi had a point that it might not be the most reliable of escape methods, but there'd be no reason for Juzoo to make this if he decided to end his own life."

"So how are you gonna solve this mystery Mr. Peabody?" Sherman asked curiously.

"To get to the bottom of this case, we'll going to have to go to the bottom of the cliff this house is built on," the genius K9 explained.

…..

It took about 10 minutes for Peabody and Sherman to get right below the Higekata residence.

"Cool, the waterfall by the house makes a little pond here," Sherman noted.

"That's not important right now, Sherman," Peabody told his adopted son, "What we are looking for is clues."

Sherman looked around a bit. "Um, Mr. Peabody, is that piece of board a clue?"

Peabody turned to see what his boy had found. Indeed, it was the piece of the wall that had fallen from the scene of the death. "Brilliant Sherman," he grinned, "And it looks like there are other items down here in the water as well."

"Then I'm glad I pointed this out to you," Sherman smiled proudly as Peabody continued to gather up more clues.

"This looks like a piece of a firecracker," Peabody pointed out next, holding up a tiny burnt object, "And there's the remains of a tiny wooden boat."

"How are all of these connected?" Sherman asked, not being able to fit the pieces of the puzzle together.

Peabody looked back up, pulling out a pair of binoculars. At the top, right by the Higekata residence, the waterfall went by the little opening at the top of Juzoo's wall.

"I've just figured out the connection Sherman," Peabody smirked, "The smoking gun has been fired, and I know who the culprit is."

….

Mr. Peabody and Sherman returned back up to the Higekata residence.

"Where did you two go?" Akira asked, having noticed that their guests had vanished for a while.

"We were looking for answers," Peabody replied, "And thanks to our little journey, I can definitely tell you all who the killer is!"

"You do?" Hiroshi gasped, "Who was it?"

"The killer is none other than the victim's wife…..AKO!" Peabody pointed his paw.

Hiroshi and Akira gasped. "That can't be true," Akira said to his stepmother.

"How would doing such a thing be possible for me?" Ako asked.

"It's quite possible, if you made use of the waterfall," Peabody revealed, "Earlier tonight you went into your husband's room and knocked him out. You brought in a small wooden boat along with you and prepared the noose in advance. You tied it around his check and placed his body in the boat."

"How would that help her?" Hiroshi asked.

"She used one of the draining boards to divert the flow of the falls into the room. You began to flood the room. The noose was positioned in a way that it wouldn't hang him properly until the water was drained from the room."

"How could I drain this supposed flooded room?" Ako asked in her own defense.

"That's where the hole in the wall comes into play," Peabody continued to explain, "Ako escaped the room by climbing over the other gap in the wall, and carefully climbing to her balcony. After some time, when she could tell the room was flooded enough, she lit a firecracker, and the ensuing burst caused the hole in the wall. This drained all the water. Also, there was clay packed into the cracks in the floor's draining boards so that the water would be able to fill up the room."

"But where's your proof I murdered my husband?" Ako asked the dog detective.

"Your room is directly across from Juzoo's room," Peabody pointed out, "You'd be the only one with the opportunity to light the firecracker and escape from his room once it was locked."

Ako sighed, her entire master plan had been figured out. "I'm so sorry Akira," she said to her stepmom.

"By why would you do this Ako?" Akira asked, beginning to tear up.

"I did it for your biological mother," Ako explained, "He drove her to suicide by constantly cheating on her and getting drunk constantly. The day before she threw herself off the cliff, she told me she wanted me to take care of you and make sure you didn't end up like him. I didn't realize her intentions until it was too late…."

Akira and Hiroshi gasped at the revelation of Juzoo's rather despicable behavior.

"We will leave you all to handle your own affairs now," Peabody said to the grieving family, "Come on Sherman, the WABAC should be back to full power about now."

"Ok Mr. Peabody," Sherman nodded, as the father and son headed back to their own personal time machine.

…..

Back in the present at Albright University, Mr. Peabody had finished retelling this tale to Peng.

"So, I've had quite a bit of experience with mysteries myself, as you can see," he smiled with a smug grin. "Would you like me to assist you in your research?"

"No, I can handle this one myself, but thanks Professor Peabody," Peng told the history professor.

Mr. Peabody nodded and headed to his office at the other side of the computer lab.

Peng went to looking up more articles on the urban legends of Albright, and he was finally able to find one with an article that provided names. "The Missing Seven," Peng began to read, "7 twenty year olds, named Alex Packard, Regina Martell, Cameron Brennan, Heidi Palmer, Tori Horne, Jeff Hayward, and Hayden Johnson. No report of any of their whereabouts has been made since this January of this year."

Peng then noticed the time on the computer's clock. "It's getting late," he said to himself, "I probably should get back before everyone gets worried about me." He copied the legends and articles into a word document, printed it off, and headed back to Typhon Hall.

…

Back in the dorm, Bert had an idea. "Say, some of us still have finals tomorrow, why don't we take them to the burger joint by campus and pay for the food as a little treat to those among us who had to study this whole week?"

"Not a bad idea Bert," Lian nodded, "Let's go get the guys."

Josie had already left the dorm to head home, though she had stopped to see a lot of the dorm's residents individually.

Bert and Lian went up to Zack's room and knocked on the door. "Hey Zack," Bert called, "Would you like us to get you something from Burger Queen?" There was no response. "Think he's ignoring us?"

Lian put her ear close to the door. With her heightened feline senses, she could hear what sounded like some sort of swaying. "Bert, step back," she advised.

"Why?" Bert asked, confused, as Lian kicked the door open.

And to their shock, hanging above a massive pile of tossed around junk from a noose, was Zack.

Underneath him was a paper reading "I couldn't take the pressure…"


	8. Ice Ice Maybe

**The Toon Files Episode 138: Ice Ice Maybe.**

"Oh god," Bert gasped, seeing his lizard friend hang from the noose above the messy pile of notebooks, his mattress, and pretty much all of the stuff he had brought into his dorm.

"Hang on!" Lian called, leaping up and cutting the rope with her claws. Using her swift kung fu moves, she was able to catch him before he hit the floor, and she gently set him down.

"Is he still alive?" Bert asked, concerned for their friend.

Lian checked Zack's pulse, hoping that it was not too late for the lizard. But try as she did in attempts to resuscitate him Reluctantly, after a moment of silence, she turned to Bert.

"I…I'm sorry Bert, but Zack's gone," the snow leopardess informed sadly.

"What? No, this can't be," Bert said, beginning to cry, looking at the note left under where Zack was found, "If I'd a known he was feeling this bad about his situation, I would've helped him!"

Lian pounded the wall in anger. "How could this happen?" she growled, "We have to tell everyone and call the police…."

…..

As Peng was making his way back to Typhon Hall, he noticed a familiar face standing out in the center of the quad.

"Zoey?" Peng asked the bat, "What are you doing out here?"

"Oh, hey Peng," Zoey replied, "I just came out here to enjoy the snow."

"In this weather?" Peng asked questionably.

"Well, there's something that happened last year around this time," Zoey admitted, "I lost my boyfriend."

"Oh, I'm sorry Zoey," Peng apologized for bringing up memories, "What happened?"

"He….he killed himself," Zoey admitted, looking to the sky in remembrance. "When we were together, he always loved the wintertime. I still have a fondness for snow, even now that he's gone."

"I see," Peng nodded, regretting that he had asked these things, as he could tell it was a hard subject for her.

"We might as well head back," Zoey said next, starting to smile, "Besides, I couldn't exactly keep a candle lit out here."

"Good idea," the nephew of Tai Lung nodded.

…

Up on the top floor of Typhon Hall, Tina, Popka, Gwen, and Anna were playing on the dorm's Wii U.

"You guys don't know the first thing about kart racing games, do you?" Tina smirked, taking an easy lead.

"These claws aren't made for Gamepads," Popka pointed out, the native Lunatean wasn't used to these kinds of consoles.

"Guess what I just picked up," Gwen smirked as she hit an item box.

"Oh no, don't tell me," Tina realized, the wolf's ear twitched whenever she sensed she was about to be taken out of the lead in a racing game.

"Blue shell," Anna laughed in unison with Gwen as the goth girl launched the power-up that held the record for most ruined friendships.

"Drat," Tina frowned as she lost her lead, "I don't wanna lose getting that trophy with diamonds, even if it is just virtual."

The reference to losing diamonds triggered a funny little memory for the princess of Arendelle. She began to think back to a time where she had to solve a mystery.

Little did she know that she and her friends were only minutes away from getting involved in a big one.

….

**Arendelle, Norway, 1856.**

Princess Anna and her sister Queen Elsa had somewhat a troubled relationship in the past, but they grew to be very close. For several years, Elsa did her best to hide her powers of creating snow, but after a big incident where Arendelle was nearly plunged into an eternal winter, and an evil scheming prince named Hans tried to take over the kingdom, but luckily he was foiled, Elsa gained complete control over her powers, and the kingdom was at peace again.

Another thing Elsa had done was allow the castle doors to be open, and the regular citizens of Arendelle could come and go as they pleased.

"Everyone really likes the ice rink you made," Anna smiled to her sister.

"And it's all free," Elsa nodded, "Let's just hope everyone knows how to skate."

"Olaf's sure is happy," Anna noted, seeing the living snowman that she and Elsa had created as kids and had been given life by Elsa in the present day.

"Well, I got to get to the royal meeting Anna," Elsa told her sister next, "It's an issue of trade this time."

"Good luck with that," Anna told Elsa. Anna was not jealous of the fact she wasn't queen. She was more of the adventurous type who liked to explore beyond the castle and village.

"You know I can handle this," Elsa smiled, "Especially since we don't have to deal with the Duke of Weaselton anytime soon."

Both sisters shared a laugh at that.

…..

Since it was summertime again and there had been pathways made in the nearby woods, Anna decided to wanted to go for a ride on her bike around the kingdom.

"Let's see if I can beat the local record," Anna smirked to herself when all of a sudden, two workers at the castle showed up.

They included Christian, one of the guards, and Anne, one of the maids. "We have bad news to report to you, Princess Anna," Anne informed.

"What kind of bad news?" Anna frowned, "Please tell me the soufflés didn't explode all over the castle kitchen again, did they?"

"It's not that," Christian replied, "We were walking around the halls, tending to our duties, when we noticed the royal family diamonds were missing!"

"They're missing?" Anna gasped, "When did this happen?"

"It had to have happened within the past 7 minutes," Anne explained, "I had walked by their holding place back then and they were still there."

"Did anyone see any suspicious figures?" Anna asked the two workers of the palace.

"No, no one claims they have seen anything," the maid responded.

"Then there's a good chance the thief could still be here inside the castle," Anna deduced, "I can't believe I'm the one saying this, but close the gates. We may be able to keep the thief trapped inside until we find the diamonds!"

"Should we tell your sister, Queen Elsa?" Christian asked the princess.

"No, keep this on the down low for now," Anna instructed the castle workers, "She's in a big important meeting right now, I wouldn't want to stress herself out."

"Got it," Anne and Christian nodded.

…

In a short matter of time, the bridge in front of the Arendelle castle was lifted up, and the gates were closed off.

"Anna, what's going on?" Kristoff asked, coming over to Anna.

Kristoff was an ice salesman that Anna had met during the time Elsa plunged the kingdom into the eternal winter. During this time, both Anna and Kristoff realized they had some feelings for each other, though Anna had learned not to rush a relationship, as that's part of how Hans had been able to dupe her. Both were pacing the relationship at a calm, normal pace.

"Oh Kristoff, I thought you were selling a new shipment of ice right now," Anna commented to her boyfriend.

"Turns out they cancelled their order," Kristoff explained, "And why did the gates have to close?"

"Don't let word on this spread," Anna said, walking over to Kristoff and checking to make sure no one else was around who could hear what she was saying, "But it looks like someone stole the diamonds of the Arendelle royal family."

"There's been a theft?" Kristoff said, surprised.

"Yeah," Anna nodded, "And those diamonds are really valuable too, they've been in our family for over 6 generations now, never losing their shine."

"I'll help you find them if you need my help," Kristoff offered.

"Thanks, just don't let Elsa know they're missing," Anna requested.

…..

Since the people in the castle were now essentially locked in for a while as the investigation went on, Anna was searching the halls for any signs of questionable activity.

She saw a chef carrying trays of food to and from the room where Elsa was holding the royal meeting.

"I don't think it could've been him," Anna said, "Unless he tried hiding the diamonds inside a cooked turkey, and that wouldn't be good for anyone who tried to take a bite of it."

She eventually came across Christian, who was taking the permitted half hour lunch break each worker at the palace got.

"Did you find the diamonds yet, your majesty?" the butler asked.

"Not yet," Anna replied, seeing a bag Christian had next to him. She opened it up to look at its contents.

"If you think I could be the thief, you're sadly mistaken, but feel free to look around that," he encouraged.

Anna reached in and pulled out an icepick. "What are you doing with this?" she asked Christian.

"it's a new hobby I'm taking up," he explained in response, "Ever since I saw what Queen Elsa can do with her powers, I've become fascinated with ice. I use that to do some ice sculpturing. I'll admit my skills need a lot of work."

"interesting," Anna replied, "You should talk to Kristoff, he may be able to lend you a hand with that kind of thing."

"Thank you for your kind words Princess Anna," Christian bowed respectfully.

…

A little later into the investigation Anna ran into Anne who was dusting some of the paintings in the royal art gallery.

"I'm a little behind schedule, so do you mind if I talk and dust?" Anne asked the princess.

"Not at all," Anna responded, "It is getting a little dusty in here anyways. I ahh…..ah….cho!" Anna let out a big sneeze. "Man I wish I had a tissue right about now…."

"What is it you wanted to talk about, Princess Anna?" Anne asked.

"You said you've been dusting after you and Christian reported that the diamonds were stolen to me, Is that correct?"

"Yes it is your highness," Anne responded.

"Since you've been over a lot of the rooms in the palace, dusting through all the nooks and crannies, did anything seem out of place to you?"

"What do you mean by that?" Anne asked.

"I mean, did it seem like there were any items not where they were supposed to be," Anna explained, "Maybe the culprit hid them somewhere else in the palace and intended to come pick them up later."

Anne thought about that for a minute, recalling every inch of the castle that she had dusted. "I'm afraid I don't remember seeing anything out of place, your majesty."

"Darn it, I thought that would be the right way to look into this case," Anna said, her theory on what had happened was looking less and less likely. "Good job with the dusting, by the way."

"Thank you," Anne replied to her princess.

….

Anna went back out to the outside of the palace where the ice rink was. Olaf was sliding around the ice along with the regular Arendelle citizens who had been inside.

"Watch me do a spin!" Olaf called, leaping into the air, the 3 sections of his body briefly separating but he was able to land together in one piece.

"Any luck?" Kristoff asked Anna, adjusting his hat.

"Not a lick, I'm afraid," Anna informed the ice seller, "Oh, what am I going to tell Elsa? Those diamonds were a royal treasure, one we were shown by our parents, and now they're missing…"

As she was talking, she noticed Olaf and some of the other skaters kept slipping. "Well, they seem to be having bad luck too today," Kristoff noted.

"Wait a minute, that's weird," Anna noted.

"What is?" Kristoff asked.

"Look at them," the princess of Arendelle explained, "They all seem to be wiping out in the exact same location, don't ya see?"

"You're right," Kristoff realized, taking a closer look.

Anna raced over to the center of the ice rink, though she regretted running as she ended up sliding across to the other side. Taking more careful paces the second time around, she got down and looked at some cracks that were in the center of the rink Elsa had created for the citizens.

A big grin appeared on the princess's face. "Kristoff, come over here!" she called.

"What's going on?" Kristoff asked, putting on skates.

"I think I know exactly what happened here," Anna explained with a grin.

….

A few minutes later, Anna and Kristoff went back into the castle of Arendelle, looking for one individual in particular.

They found Christian roaming the halls, when he stopped and noticed them.

"Ah, Princess Anna, you've found the diamonds!" he exclaimed happily, "Where were they?"

"We found them in the exact place you had hidden them Christian," Anna revealed, "Because you are the thief!"

"What? Me? You can't possibly be serious, you majesty," Christian replied.

"She's being as serious as a heart attack," Kristoff replied.

"I found where you hid the diamonds, in the ice in the skating rink!" Anna revealed, "That's why the skaters kept tripping in the exact same spot. Because diamonds are a high enough substance that skates can't cut through, everyone who would run over them would trip."

"I was able to get the diamonds out of the ice myself," Kristoff explained, "We'll have to ask Elsa to fix the rink, though."

"How could I have gotten the diamonds into the ice?" Christian asked, defending himself from the accusations against him.

"By using the ice pick I had found in your bag," Anna explained, "I get the feeling that sculpting hobby was either a lie or at the very most something else you intended to do with the tools of your trick. When the coast was clear, you grabbed the diamonds off their pedestal and took off to the outside, where you used the pick to insert them into the ice."

"You probably intended to wait until the gates were lowered again," Kristoff continued, Anna having explained the whole solution to him, "And pick the diamonds back out of the ice once your shift was done."

Christian sighed. "You've found me out, Princess Anna," he admitted.

"But why would you do this?" Anna asked, "You've been loyal to my family for so long."

"It's because my daughter is sick," Christian revealed, "And it's up in the air on whether she'll be able to make it. She always told me and her mother that one of her wishes was to see some diamonds up close, and these were the only diamonds in the known area nearby…" he admitted.

Anna put her hand on the butler's shoulder. "You know, if I talk to Elsa, we might be able to work something out."

Sure enough, with a royal escort, Christian's daughter was able to take a look at the magnificent diamonds up close. Even better, a few weeks later she had made a full recovery from her sickness and was up and running again, healthy as ever.

"I love a happy ending," Anna smiled to her sister, who created a little pile of snow for the children of the kingdom to play in.

…..

In the present, Peng and Zoey arrived back at Typhon Hall as they saw an ambulance outside.

"Oh god no," Peng gulped, realizing that something bad had to have happened. The snow leopard and bat quickly raced inside.

The two quickly found their friends talking with the cops right outside of Zack's room.

"Lian, what happened?" Peng asked his girlfriend.

"it's Zack, we found him hanging," Lian informed Peng regretfully.

"Look how cluttered his room is," Tina said, "He must've been throwing one hell of a tantrum, tossing everything around his room. Then he must've just given up on life…." She sighed sadly.

However, for a lot of the residents of Typhon Hall, they found that story kind of hard to accept. In the span of a few hours, one of their own is possibly dead and the other hung himself? To a lot of the toons, this was too extreme to be a mere coincidence.

As the Albright authorities left, Peng and the others began investigating the scene.

"His room was locked when we found him," Bert said.

"I heard the noose swaying, so he would have had to have been hung around 8 pm," Lian told Peng.

Gwen then noticed something odd. "Have you guys seen the other boot?" she asked.

"What other boot?" Kai replied.

"Only his left leg has a boot on, but why?" Gwen said to her friends and fellow detectives.


	9. Curtain Call

**The Toon Files Episode 139: Curtain Call.**

In the aftermath of Zack's death, a lot of the residents of Typhon Hall understandably had some troubles doing their finals the next day.

A lot of the professors, Dagen, Peabody, and Vineyard included, let them take their final papers online so they wouldn't have to come to class if they couldn't find the strength to come.

"Thanks for letting all the others do that, Ms. Vineyard," Gwen told Josie, as she was able to make it to the classroom for the final exam.

"Don't mention it," the Psych professor replied earnestly, "I know how hard these things can be, I mean, I kind of teach a class about how people think and feel, right?"

"You have a point," Gwen nodded.

The rest of the Typhon Hall residents who weren't finished with all their finals were able to do the rest online, which they all did at their own paces.

…..

Eventually, Saturday came. For a lot of students at Albright University, namely the seniors or students who had taken enough credits, it was Graduation Day.

Peng, Lian, Gwen, Abigail, Hiccup, Bert, Anna, Popka, Blu, Umi, and Kai were gathered in the university's cafeteria, where they all sat at a big table.

"At first, heading back home for the winter got me excited," Anna said, "But now I'll be heading back with these bad memories."

"I can only imagine how Zack's family is taking this news," Bert nodded.

"Is there any word on Dean yet?" Abigail asked.

"He's still in and out, according to the last time I heard from the hospital," Gwen replied.

"I'm trying not to let this get me down," Popka spoke up, "So I got myself a ticket to that club in town tonight."

"You mean that one having the Wonder Showzen performance tonight?" Blu remembered, having seen an advertisement for it in the local paper, "That's really low brow humor, you know."

"And that's my kind of humor," Popka said with a chuckle.

Umi picked up some papers Peng had taken out of his bag. "So these are those local legends huh?" the girl from Japan asked.

"Yup," Peng nodded, as Umi began to read about the Flying Car legend.

"This one says that witnesses reported seeing a car drive over what appeared to be thin air," Umi read off.

"Hey Zoey," Abigail waved to the bat, "Wanna join us?"

"Uh, no," Zoey replied suddenly, "I should be getting prepared for graduation now anyways. Take care guys."

"That's weird, seems like she changed her mind quickly there," Kai noted.

"I think there's one question we should be considering guys," Peng said next, "Do any of you think Zack was murdered, and if so, who do you think did it?"

A lot of Peng's friends were unsure on how to respond to that.

"I've seen enough locked room cases in my time to know that Zack's scene of the death seems….off," Abigail admitted.

"Come to think of it," Kai spoke up, "Allister seemed to vanish for a while there…"

"Say, wasn't there a murder at another college recently?" Bert asked, "Do you guys think that could be connected to this?"

"I doubt it," Abigail replied, having heard the story, "I saw an article on that. It was a murder at a stage play. Someone managed to solve it," she explained, beginning to remember the news story.

…

**Tokyo, Japan, 1999.**

There are some challenges that are faced daily in the world. The Yamada family was one family who went through a lot of these. The family consisted of father Takashi, mother Matsuko, son Noboru, daughter Nonoko, and Matsuko's mother Shige.

"Do we really have to go to this?" Takashi asked his wife as they pulled into the parking lot of the university's theater.

"You know we have to," Matsuko replied, "We got these tickets for free."

"Fine," Takashi replied with a sigh.

Once the Yamada family were in their seats, Nonoko took out a candy bar she had brought along.

"No eating in the theater," said Amoru Sato, one of the teachers at the college, strictly. He was in charge of maintaining order in the audience during the show, "The sign clearly states leave all edible goods outside."

"Sorry," Nonoko apologized.

"Thank you all for coming to the show tonight," Eri Chiba, the director of the play, said to the audience.

"I hear this play stars that Miyuki Tanaka girl, her past performances have gotten good reviews," Shige told her family.

Up above the audience, the girl student who was in control of the lighting, Mariko Kindaichi was looking down smugly at the audience.

"They're all going to be let down by this performance," she chuckled to herself.

….

During the play, while Matsuko, Shige, and the children were interested in the play, Takashi yawned, having fallen asleep.

Eri and the other director gave the actors cues as to when to go on stage, Amoru was patrolling the audience to make sure there was no riff-raff, and Miyuki was giving the performance of her life onstage.

Eventually, during the finale, all spotlights were on Yuki, who was singing a solo in a beautiful falsetto voice.

As she held onto the last note, she began to disappear down into the stage thanks to a trap door.

"Eh, that was over the top," Mariko said to herself from her light booth, when all of a sudden she felt a presence in the room with her. She turned and saw a figure. "What the hell are you doing here?" she asked, confused, when she saw the figure raising a pipe towards her…

Eventually, the stage went dark once the song was over, and the light was supposed to come on so all the actors could come on stage and take a bow, but they never did.

"Where's Mariko?" Eri asked the assistant stage manager.

"I'll turn on the master lights," the assistant manager replied, flipping the master switch, and when the people on the stage looked up, they gasped.

They could see Mariko lying dead, bloody over her control panel!

"AHHHH!" Miyuki screamed at the sight.

…..

While the rest of the Yamada family decided to stay out of the way of the investigation, Matsuko went upstairs to the control room, because she had seen Mariko before.

"It seems the murder weapon was this brass pipe," the police captain said, "The culprit bashed her over the head with it, and then made their escape. It seems like the time of death was 10:35 according to our estimates."

"That's should have been about during the final song according to my watch," Eri said to the police.

"This is so horrible," Matsuko said, "Do you have any suspects officer?"

"None at the moment," the cop replied, "But given the scene of the crime, we find it very likely that this was a premeditated murder and not a random attack."

"Did anyone here have a known grudge against her?" Matsuko asked.

"Actually, there are 3 people who fit the bill," the assistant manager revealed.

"Who are they?" the cop asked.

"There's Eri the director, Miyuki the star, and Amoru the security man from stuff I've seen, they've all had arguments with her."

"I'm gonna go ask some questions," Matsuko said.

….

"They think I'm a suspect in the murder?" Eri asked Matsuko, in disbelief at the accusation.

"They've said you've had arguments with her," Matsuko said as her family stood in the audience.

"She's criticized my work before, yes, but there's no way I could've gotten to her," the director said.

"In what way?" Matsuko questioned.

"You've seen all the boxes around this building and sections boarded off for the remodeling their doing, the way to get up to the control box and back, even if I killed her immediately, would be at least 9 minutes. Sure, there was some out of stage running I had to do near the end, but ask the assistant manager, I was only gone for about 5 minutes," Eri explained.

"Why is there a mattress backstage?" Matsuko asked.

"We're not of the highest budget," Eri admitted, which Matsuko could attest to seeing a cut fallen rope lying in the background, "We don't have a lot of storage space, so there are some props we keep here backstage so we know where to find them."

"I see," Matsuko nodded, "I'm going to question other suspects."

…

Matsuko found Miyuki standing on the stage. She explained what was going on, and why she was asking her these questions.

"They honestly think I could be a suspect?" the star of the play laughed, "That's absolutely absurd. Didn't they all see I was on stage for the whole last number, if that's what you're telling me is the time of death?"

"But you descended into the trap door at the end of the song," Matsuko pointed out.

"That's part of the play," Miyuki replied, "And besides, the room I'm taken to is even further downstairs, it would take me quite a bit to get to the light control room. And I was back on stage in 2 minutes."

"What's with this crack in the floorboards?" Matsuko noticed next.

"You remember the giant beanstalk prop we used?" Miyuki pointed out, "Well, that's the spot where it was supposed to go originally but looks like some prankster damaged it between rehearsals, so we had to move it a little to the right."

"Oh, Miyuki," Eri said, walking over to the actress, "I have to know, do you still want to be in Sunday's performance or would you prefer we call in the understudy?"

"I can handle this," Miyuki assured the director, and they both walked in separate directions. Matsuko could've sworn she heard an odd jingling sound.

….

Next up, Matsuko's children watched her question Amoru.

"I always knew she was a fan of crime dramas, I never realized she was taking notes the whole time," Takashi commented, as he saw his wife do a pretty thorough investigation.

"There's no way I could be the killer," Amoru told Mrs. Yamada, "I was walking around the audience making sure there was no horseplay going on for the whole play."

"It's true," Noboru nodded to his mother.

"There's plenty of other witnesses who could back me up," Amoru told the investigator.

"What was this argument I heard you had with the victim about?" Matsuko asked the show's security man.

"She had been careless with some of the materials during rehearsals," Amoru explained about the late Mariko, "And she often made many big messes….Hey! Who left this gum wrapper on the floor?!"

"Wasn't me," Nonoko said innocently.

"I didn't see this in this aisle during the play, some darn litterbug had to have dropped this afterwards," Amoru grumbled.

Matsuko was developing theories, but she needed to see the scene of the crime again. She figured there had to be something there that she had missed the first time.

….

It took a few minutes, but Matsuko was able to get back up to the light control room.

"Were you able to find anything out mam?" one of the officers asked.

"A few details, but nothing that can quite peg a culprit yet," Matsuko admitted.

"This is weird," the assistant stage manager said suddenly.

"What is weird?" Matsuko asked.

"Mariko always carried on her these dice key chains, she had them no matter what she was wearing, and it doesn't seem to be on her," the managed explained as the cops searched the victim's pockets.

"That is odd," Matsuko nodded, as she went to go see the open window in front of where the victim's body was lying.

As Matsuko looked out, she noticed two odd things. One: there was a metal bar going above and across the window that was covered in dust, except for one tiny spot. The second thing was as follows: The spot where Amoru found the gum wrapper, the crack in the stage, and the mattress backstage were all in a straight line.

A grin appeared on Matsuko's face. The mosaic of what had happened tonight had become clear to her.

"I know who the culprit is," she grinned triumphantly.

…

Matsuko went back to the backstage area where Eri was.

"Is there an update on the case?" Eri asked her friend.

"Yes, as a matter of fact we've found out who the killer is," Matsuko informed.

"You do?" Eri replied, "Who is it?"

"I'm afraid to say that the killer is you….ERI!" Matsuko revealed dramatically.

"Me?" Eri gasped, "How could I have been the killer? I already told you, it would have been impossible for me to get up and their back in the time I was moving around!"

"What you're saying is true," Matsuko replied, "But that's going under the assumption the culprit took the same path up and back down!"

"What do you mean?" Eri asked, worried that her trick had been found out.

"You, under the cover of darkness that the theater provided, had created a zip line using the cut rope I noticed backstage," Matsuko explained to Eri, "Using this, you'd be able to run up to the control room, killed Mariko, and get back to the downstage area while the lights were out."

"How is it possible I could have made a zipline?" Eri asked.

"There's a non-dusty spot on the metal bar above the window," Matsuko explained, "That's where the rope was attached. And then there was the gum wrapper Amoru found on the ground. It would have had to fall out of your pocket as you ziplined down during the darkness, as Amoru stated he didn't see it during the show."

"And wait a minute….that crack in the floor…" Miyuki realized.

"Yup," Matsuko nodded, "She made that back during the other day so that she would have a straight line back to the backstage. And that mattress back there was not left there because of lack of storage space, she needed a soft landing when she got backstage. Once she landed, she cut the rope and was able to bring it back here and hide it."

"And where's your proof that I am the culprit?" Eri asked defensively.

"May I see your pockets Eri?" Matsuko asked the director.

"Sure, but what do you think you'll find…." Eri responded, but she gasped as Matsuko pulled out a certain small object.

"The key chain I heard Mariko always wears," Matsuko revealed, "The assistant manager said she always had it on her. When you attacked her with the pipe, she must've quickly put it in your pocket as a way to incriminate you without you noticing."

Eri fell to the floor, her scheme had been figured out.

"By why would you do this?" Miyuki asked Eri as the cops handcuffed her.

"She used her connections to sabotage my career," Eri revealed, "Since we had gotten into a fight before, she asked her father to be especially critical of me in his review of a big time production I was working on, and now I am only able to get college jobs like this…."

"You did great dear," Shige told her daughter after the mystery had been solved.

"Dad still fell asleep though," Noboru commented.

Matsuko could only chuckle.

….

"That was a pretty bizarre case now that I think about it," Hiccup nodded, having seen an article on it only a few days prior.

Gwen looked at one of the other urban legends that Peng had found online, the one that pertained to the rats.

"So it says here that over the past year, the local rat and mouse population decreased significantly. How could that make for an urban legend?" the goth girl asked.

"It's because some people theorize that there is something out there killing all the rodents," Peng replied.

"Still, that is pretty weak," Kai nodded in agreement with Gwen.

"There is still one other issues we have to address," Lian told all her friends.

"And what might that be?" Bert asked the snow leopardess.

"if we're right in our assumption that what happened to Dean and Zack was perpetrated by someone, the big question is: How do we know that these deaths aren't over yet?"

The others only looked around the table grimly.


	10. The Big Framed Wolf

**The Toon Files Episode 140: The Big Framed Wolf.**

There was a moment of awkward silence at the table in the cafeteria the residents of Typhon Hall were sitting at.

"If these truly are murder," Bert said, "Then who could be next?"

"We don't know what the killer's pattern is," Hiccup nodded, "It could've just been coincidences that his or her first two targets lived in the same building."

"But here's the thing," Lian pointed out, "For the killer to have gotten to Zack's room, even though it was locked, they would have had to go in through the door, as the windows are perfectly sealed."

"So, even if the culprit isn't someone who lives in Typhon Hall, it would at least had to have been somebody who visited in the last day."

All of a sudden, Gwen's cell phone began to ring. "It's my brother Mitch," she said, checking the caller ID.

"Hey Gwen," Mitch said, sounding very concerned over the phone, "I've been attacked and robbed. You gotta get back home right now!"

"Uh, ok," Gwen nodded, "Be right there, I should get back to our world in 30 minutes." She turned to her friends, "Sorry to cut this short, but there's a family emergency, I have to get going."

"Take care Gwen," Umi said.

"And I have to get to the club," Popka grinned, hopping out of his seat, "The party goes all day, and I don't want to miss a minute of it."

"So what are we going to do now?" Bert asked the others.

"The thing is, a lot of our home worlds are gonna need us back now that the semester is over," Hiccup said regretfully, "We should start packing…."

….

Anna, Hiccup, Kai, and Abigail went back to their dorms to begin packing their bags. Peng, Lian, Blu, Umi, and Bert went to the Readmore Library to thing about their next move.

"These were all the pictures you were able to get of the crime scene Bert?" Blu asked. The raccoon was majoring in journalism.

"Yeah, I tried to get it from every angle I could," Bert explained to his friends.

"There has to be something in these pictures that we're missing," Peng said, looking them over.

A lot of the pictures were of the clutter that was below Zack's body. There was his mattress from his top bunk, various books, various video games, an RC car, a coin bank, and heaps of clothes.

"And how could the killer have locked the door," Lian continued, "After all, those doors only lock from the inside."

However, the investigation was about to be interrupted when two people came over to Peng.

"Excuse us sir," Yoyo, a furry creature said to Peng.

"Um, yes?" Peng replied confused.

"We've been told by O.G. Readmore that you have some experience as a detective, is that correct?" Doc Croc, a lizard asked.

"Well yes, what do you need?" Peng asked.

"We're going to need you to come into this book," Yoyo explained. "You'll be meeting the big bad wolf."

"Go into the book?" Peng asked, confused, "How?"

"With just a few simple words," Doc Croc replied, "Simsala Grimm," he muttered, and all of a sudden he, Peng, and Yoyo were warped into the story.

…..

**The old forest, 1850.**

"Whoa!" Peng explained as he and the two smaller creatures landed in the world of the story.

"Sorry for the rough landing, you'll get used to it," Yoyo said.

"I hope I don't have to," Peng muttered under his breath. "So, what did you want me to do?"

"The Big Bad Wolf wanted to see a private eye," Doc Croc explained, "He says he was framed."

"Framed for what?" Peng asked the two who had brought him into this new world.

"I think you should see for yourself," Yoyo said with a chuckle as they led Peng back towards a cottage.

…..

Once they were inside, Peng noticed the Big Bad Wolf lying on a bed, a fragment of a red cloth stuck between his teeth.

"Is this the detective I asked for?" the predator of the forest asked.

"Why yes, I am," Peng replied, "Is this the Red Riding Hood story or the Wolf and Seven Kids one?"

"I'm the Red Riding Hood version," the wolf replied, "And I need your help."

"If you wanted a detective, what do you want me to solve?" Peng asked the Big Bad Wolf.

"That Red Riding Hood girl is missing," the Big Bad Wolf explained, "And everyone thinks I ate her."

"Well…..didn't you?" Peng replied, seeing the fragment of the red hood caught in the wolf's teeth.

"That's the thing," the wolf replied, "I went into this cottage to take a nap, and when I woke up, this was caught in my teeth!"

"Maybe you did some sleep eating?" Yoyo suggested with a chuckle.

"No, I would probably remember if I did something like that," the Big Bad Wolf replied in his defense, "And now the huntsman is threatening to chop me if because the story hasn't started properly yet."

"But if it wasn't you then," Peng told the Big Bad Wolf, "Where could she have gone?"

"I actually have an idea on that," the Big Bad Wolf replied, "This weekend, my family all came to this forest for a big family reunion. And, needless to say, they all share my taste in food…."

"You have relatives?" Peng asked, surprised.

"Of course I do," the Big Bad Wolf replied matter of factly, "I do exist, don't I?"

"Point taken," Doc Croc replied, "Where would you family be at this time?"

"in the Western Cave of the forest," the Big Bad Wolf replied, "I can lead you all there."

"This is going to be one weird mystery…" Peng said to himself.

…

The Big Bad Wolf led Peng, Yoyo, and Doc Croc through the forest. "I think I recognize some of these places," the snow leopard, "Those are the 3 little pigs' houses, there's the witch's candy house, guess Hansel and Gretel haven't shown up yet, oh, and there's the beanstalk to the giant's castle!"

"Yeah, we've seen these all before," Doc Croc told Peng.

Eventually, the 4 arrived at the Western Cave.

"Is that…a blood stain?" Yoyo gasped, seeing a red mark on the nearby grass.

"Well, considering what species I am," the Big Bad Wolf grinned somewhat smugly, "That has a very high probability of being what it is."

"Don't worry about being eaten," Peng assured Yoyo and Doc Croc, "I know kung fu, I can stop them if any of them try funny stuff."

"Thank you Peng," Doc Croc nodded, tipping his hat to the snow leopard.

Once inside the cave, the Big Bad Wolf recognized a lot of his family.

"Hi Uncle Big Bad!" Little Bad Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf's nephew waved.

"Nice seeing ya again kiddo," the Big Bad wolf smiled, shaking his nephew's paw, "How are you doing sis?"

"Oh fine," Big Sharp wolf, the Big Bad's sister smiled, showing off her very pointy set of pearly whites.

Yoyo and Doc Croc both shivered at the sight of those wolf teeth.

"Who's the cat?" Big Fast, one of the Big Bad Wolf's uncles asked.

"I'm a snow leopard," Peng replied, correcting the wolf.

"Is anyone else coming?" the Big Bad Wolf asked his family.

"Your parents and your aunt are on the way," Big Fast replied.

"And now we can get down to solving this case," Peng said, getting the attention of all the wolves.

…..

Back in the library, Lian, Blu, Umi, and Bert were planning what to do next in regards to the mystery of what had happened to their friends.

"There's something we need to consider," Blu commented, "Tonight is graduation for the seniors, and a lot of the staff don't work again until the Spring semester starts."

"So there's a good chance that after tonight, the culprit might be able to get away, if they haven't already," Lian nodded, slamming her fist on the table.

"This is terrible," Umi sighed, "What are we going to do? We're running out of time to catch the killer…."

"And to think the school is treating who vandalized the main as more of a mystery," Bert said.

"There has to be something we're not seeing in these," Lian exclaimed, looking at the pictures Bert had taken of Zack's crime scene, "There has to be a key to the case that we are not seeing!"

"Peng better get back soon," Blu nodded.

…

Back in the world of fairy tales, Peng was explaining the situation to the Big Bad Wolf's family.

"The Big Bad Wolf here says that Little Red Riding Hood has gone missing, and that one of you could've been the one who took her."

"What makes you say that?" Big Sharp asked, as she began to knit a pair of gloves.

"Well, there's the fact all of you appear to have big full stomachs right now," Peng replied, pointing to the guts of the Big Bad's relatives that were all sticking out.

"Oh, we just happened to eat some rabbits along the way," Big Fast grinned proudly.

"I ate this one couple," Big Sharp bragged.

"Don't tell me you ate the kid rabbits too?" Doc Croc gasped.

"No, I didn't," Big Sharp replied, making the lizard sigh in relief.

"It was I who ate the kids," Big Fast smirked, "And boy were they tasty!" he chuckled letting out a large burp.

Peng could only shrug as Yoyo and Doc Croc looked horrified. "And what, or rather, who did you eat?" he asked the Little Bad Wolf.

"I ate a hunter's dog," Little Bad Wolf smiled proudly, "Even if it was only a puppy…." He pulled out a paint brush and began painting a scene, as painting was Little Bad's main interest outside of hunting and napping.

"If one of us was the one who ate that Red Riding Hood girl," Big Fast asked, "How could a piece of her cape end up between the Big Bad Wolf's teeth?"

"Well, if any of you knew where he was," Peng explained, "Did the 3 of you come to this cave as a group?"

"Nope, no we did not," Big Sharp replied to Peng.

"Well, it's very possible that one of you could have eaten her and took a piece of the cape off," Peng explained.

"Well, how could you prove that?" Little Bad asked, "You'd have to go inside and check."

"And we'd be happy for seconds," Big Sharp chuckled, opening wide, making Doc Croc and Yoyo once again shiver in fear.

"If any of you tried that I'd give you indigestion," Peng said, but he realized he was running out of time to solve the case, plus he needed to get back to the college to help with the mystery there. "Give me a minute," he requested.

,…

Peng went back outside of the Western Cave to try and gather his thoughts. "Given how fast a wolf's digestive system works in these stories, I probably have at least a few hours before we have to worry about Red actually getting hurt, but I don't have that kind of time…" he pondered to himself.

As the snow leopard walked around, he noticed the sound of small weeping. "What could that be?" he asked, when he looked around and found the source of the sound.

He saw two grown rabbits, looking sad about something as they walked down the forest path.

"Wait a minute," Peng realized, a theory forming in his head. There was one more thing he was going to need to check out in order to confirm it, though.

He raced back to where Yoyo had seen the red stain earlier in the day. He noticed it was in the shape of a square, and then he sniffed it.

"This smells like…pie filling!" Peng realized, as he was moving his paw through it, he felt something prick his paw, and he lifted it up and licked the tiny drop of blood off.

As it turned out, this was precisely what he needed to solve the case.

"I know what happened here," Peng chuckled, turning back towards the Western Cave.

….

Peng went back inside the cave, where Yoyo and Doc Croc managed to convince the wolves not to eat them….for now.

"Alright everyone, I know what happened here," Tai Lung's nephew explained to the wolves.

"You do?" the Big Bad Wolf smiled, "Who was it who framed me?"

"The culprit is your sister, the Big Sharp Wolf!" Peng exclaimed.

"Me?" Big Sharp chuckled, "Wouldn't Little Red Riding Hood have known to keep away from me?"

"That's why you had to set a trap for her," Peng explained, "You used your knitting skills to fashion a tent. However, it was a tent that must have been made out of something like dough. What you saw outside Yoyo was not blood, but pie filling!"

"Pie filling, really?" Yoyo asked, surprised.

"That's exactly it," Peng confirmed. "You either saw her walking into the forest or lured her to the trapped tent somehow, and when she got inside, you pounced and gulped her up, whole!"

"I already told you, I got this gut from eating some rabbits," Big Sharp replied.

"That's the funny thing," Peng replied, "I saw some rabbits just outside this cave. They were clearly sad about something, and they were adults. Perhaps the thing they were sad about was their kids getting eaten, right Big Fast?" he asked the Big Bad Wolf's uncle.

"Then you didn't really eat those little rabbits' parents, did you?" Big Fast asked his niece.

"But where's your absolute proof that I ate Red Riding Hood?" Big Sharp demanded to know from Peng.

"I pricked my paw on something outside," Peng explained, "Specifically, it was a sewing stitch."

The Big Sharp Wolf sighed a bit as she had been found out, but then she chuckled and opened wide. "Fine, you win," she said, spitting Little Red Riding Hood back out of her stomach.

"Thank you so much," Red Riding Hood told Peng, "It kinda smelled in there."

"But why would you set me up, sis?" the Big Bad Wolf asked.

"Because it had been a while since we've seen each other," the Big Sharp Wolf told her brother, "And I wanted to play a joke on you."

"It wasn't very funny," the Big Bad Wolf hmpphed, "The Huntsman could've chopped me to pieces!"

"That reminds me," Little Red realized, "We're going to have to get back to the story soon, you go ahead to my grandmother's house," she told Big Bad.

"Got it," the hungry wolf nodded, the two of them heading out.

"Can you guys get me back to Albright University now?" Peng asked Doc Croc and Yoyo.

"Certainly," Doc Croc nodded.

"We're taking the same path to and from," Yoyo agreed.

Doc Croc again said the words "Simsala Grimm", warping them back to the library.

…

As Peng appeared back in the library, O.G Readmore congratulated him by saying "I knew I was right to recommend your services to them."

"Thank you, though I've got other things to do now," Peng responded politely.

"So that was a weird detour for you," Blu said as the snow leopard rejoined his friends and his girlfriend.

"Did you guys figure anything out while I was gone?" Peng asked, taking a seat.

Suddenly, as Lian looked at once of the pictures of Zack's body, and a realization came to her.

"Guys, I recognize that!" she exclaimed.

"Recognize what?" Bert asked.

"The boot Zack is wearing, I know I've seen that somewhere before," Lian explained.

"Where was it from?" Blu asked.

"I saw Professor Vineyard buying this exact pair of boots the other day, a little before we saw Dean fall from the roof!"

"You think Vineyard's the killer?" Blu replied, shocked by this info.

"What does the boot have to have to do with the death, though?" Peng asked.

"I'm not sure," Lian replied, "But I know for a fact that Zack never owned a pair of boots like this."

"Josie should still be in her office at this hour," Peng said, checking his watch, "Maybe we could catch up to her before it's too late!"

The snow leopards, raccoon, human, and spix's macaw took off from the library.

…

Peng, Lian, Blu, Umi, and Bert arrived outside Josie Vineyard's office.

"I can see here in there," Umi said, being able to make out her form through the distortion of the glass.

"Prof. Vineyard, can we come in?" Bert asked, knocking on the door.

Suddenly, Peng's cell phone began to ring. "It's Popka," he said, checking the Caller ID. He answered the call. "Hello?"

"Peng you'll never guess what I just found!" the native Lunatean exclaimed over the line.

But before Peng could ask for more details, they heard Blu shriek. "Guys look from up here!" the bird gasped.

Lian jumped to the top to see through the clear window, and she saw Josie slumped over the back of her chair, not moving. "Get the door open!" she exclaimed.

"Popka, I'll talk to you later," Peng replied as he and Lian kicked the door open.

The 5 ran over to the Psych professor's body, and Lian did an examination.

"It's too late," she sighed, smelling a scent, "She's dead. This looks like death by cyanide."

"What the hell is going on here?!" Peng and the others gasped at what was unfolding around them.


	11. Game Gone Wrong

**The Toon Files Episode 141: Game Gone Wrong.**

**2 hours earlier…**

There was a moment of awkward silence at the table in the cafeteria the residents of Typhon Hall were sitting at.

"If these truly are murder," Bert said, "Then who could be next?"

"We don't know what the killer's pattern is," Hiccup nodded, "It could've just been coincidences that his or her first two targets lived in the same building."

"But here's the thing," Lian pointed out, "For the killer to have gotten to Zack's room, even though it was locked, they would have had to go in through the door, as the windows are perfectly sealed."

"So, even if the culprit isn't someone who lives in Typhon Hall, it would at least had to have been somebody who visited in the last day."

All of a sudden, Gwen's cell phone began to ring. "It's my brother Mitch," she said, checking the caller ID.

"Hey Gwen," Mitch said, sounding very concerned over the phone, "I've been attacked and robbed. You gotta get back home right now!"

"Uh, ok," Gwen nodded, "Be right there, I should get back to our world in 30 minutes." She turned to her friends, "Sorry to cut this short, but there's a family emergency, I have to get going."

"Take care Gwen," Umi said.

"And I have to get to the club," Popka grinned, hopping out of his seat, "The party goes all day, and I don't want to miss a minute of it."

"So what are we going to do now?" Bert asked the others.

"The thing is, a lot of our home worlds are gonna need us back now that the semester is over," Hiccup said regretfully, "We should start packing…."

…

Gwen got on a bus to get back to her world shortly thereafter. As she took a seat, she saw some familiar faces.

"Hey Sagwa," Gwen said to the Chinese cat that was sitting in another row, "How have you been?" Both Gwen and Sagwa had helped solve the case back in King Caltrin's castle 20 years ago (Though in Gwen's world, only 4 had passed since then).

"Oh, I'm doing fine Gwen," the now mid-20s cat replied. "Me and my siblings are now the official royal calligraphers for the new Magistrate."

"That's cool, I'm going to school for art myself," Gwen commented, "How are Sheegwa and Dongwa doing?"

"Oh, they're both doing great, Dongwa's married Han-Han now," Sagwa smiled.

In another part of the bus, Garth and Lily the wolves were sitting and thinking. Lily had just recently lost her sister Kate, and the emotional toll had been taken on everyone in Jasper Park.

"She's probably in the spirit world right now," Garth comforted his mate, "And she's probably reunited with Humphrey and they're probably having the time of their lives."

"Thanks Garth, I needed that," Lily replied, feeling comforted by his words.

"See ya Sagwa," Gwen said as the bus reached the portal to her world.

"Bye Gwen, take care!" Sagwa waved her paw.

…..

**Toronto, Canada, 2014.**

Once she was back in her own world, Gwen used her cellphone to find where her brother was.

"I'm 5 blocks away from our house Gwen," Mitch told his sister over the call.

"Be right there," Gwen replied. Though sometimes she didn't show it, Gwen truly did care for her family members, including her brother.

She took a cab to the location Mitch had said he was, and was able to find him. "Mitch, what happened to you?" Gwen asked.

"I was walking down the street," Mitch explained to Gwen, "When all of a sudden, someone dressed from head to toe in black like a ninja jumped out and attacked me!"

"Are you hurt bad?" Gwen asked, concerned.

"No, just some bruises," Mitch explained, "But I got robbed!"

"Did the attacker take your wallet?" Gwen questioned, knowing that this was the beginning of a mystery.

"No, it wasn't that," Mitch explained, "The thief stole my Wii Party World Tour pieces!"

Gwen paused; she was kind of taken aback at what she had just heard. "What?" she asked flatly. "You can't be serious, can you?"

"No, that's what happened," Mitch explained, "When I was knocked to the ground and a little dazed, the thief stole my Wii Party game pieces."

"Why would anyone steal that kind of thing?" Gwen asked her brother.

"They can be used to get prizes from Nintendo," Mitch explained, "There's a contest they've been holding for the past few months, and me and some of my friends were partaking in it."

"So, do you have any suspects?" Gwen mused next, figuring that since she had already come all the way out here, she might as well help her brother out in this situation.

"Yeah, I do," Mitch nodded, "It would have to be someone who knew about the contest, so most likely, it was one of my friends!"

…..

Gwen took Mitch to a nearby restaurant so he could explain about who he was suspecting.

Using his cellphone's internet access, Mitch pulled up his friends' Facebook accounts.

"This is Kaylyn Masters," he explained, "Currently she's in the lead out of all of us with 7 pieces."

"And you think maybe she wants to extend her lead even further huh?" Gwen figured.

"And this is Miles Washington," Mitch read off next, "Out of all of us, he's in last place, but he still has a lot of spirit for the game."

"If that's true he had a good motive," Gwen nodded, taking down some notes on a notepad.

"And lastly, here's Rita Jarret," Mitch continued, pulling up the third Facebook account. "Before today, she and I were tied with 5 game pieces apiece."

"So I take it all of these guys were around town eh?" Gwen asked, "They would have to have known where you were jogging earlier this morning, right?"

"That's the thing," Mitch replied, "And this is why I called you for help, since I know you have some detective skills. The thing of it is, all of them were out of town either right until or after I got attacked by the ninja-guy."

"So all the possible suspects have solid alibis?" Gwen smirked, "That's interesting…."

"Here's what I can tell you about where everyone was as of last night," Mitch began to recall to his sister. "Kaylyn was driving back to town after visiting her grandfather who's retired in another city. The thing is, traffic across the highway has been incredibly slow after that pileup that occurred last night, I'm not sure if you heard about it on the news. She even called me around 7 am to tell me that she probably won't make it back to here until noon-ish."

"And what about Miles?" Gwen wanted to know next.

"Miles had taken a vacation via plane, and was flying back into town this morning. According to what he told me, his plane would not be arriving until 11:30 this morning."

"And lastly, there's this Rita girl, where were her whereabouts?" Gwen asked for the third time.

"She's actually still in Alberta," Mitch recalled, "She had gone there for a college tour, and she isn't supposed to be back until tomorrow."

"Then I think I can take her off the suspect list," Gwen informed Mitch, "Though from what I've seen over the years, I've seen people who managed to pull off crazier schemes despite seemingly perfect alibis."

…

Gwen and Mitch ordered food from the diner before they planned their next move.

"How are you gonna handle your friends about this one?" Gwen questioned Mitch.

"I'm sending Miles and Kaylyn texts," Mitch told his sister, typing in messages on his phone, "I'm asking both of them to come here. I'm hoping that neither of them know that I realized that the thief took my game pieces. Maybe one of them will slip up and expose themselves."

"And if that doesn't work," Gwen replied, "I can interrogate both of them and see if there are any holes in their alibi."

"Wow," a random patron in the diner mused, looking at the TV, "That traffic jam is still backed up?"

"Yeah," a waitress replied, "I feel bad for the people stuck on the road. Anyone who got on the highway anytime past midnight is probably still stuck there."

"How about I give Rita a call now?" Mitch suggested to his sister.

"Eh, there's no harm in it," Gwen shrugged.

Mitch dialed Rita's number on his phone.

Over in Alberta, Rita picked up the call. "Hey Mitch, what's up?" she asked her friend.

"Oh hey Rita," Mitch began to talk, "Did Miles or Kaylyn talk to you about getting any more of the Wii Party game pieces within the past few hours?"

"No, why?" Rita replied, walking around the college she was visiting.

"Well, someone attacked me earlier this morning," Mitch revealed, "And whoever did it stole my game pieces!"

"Really, someone attacked you over that?" Rita asked, unknowingly sharing Gwen's sentiment.

"Yeah, that's what happened," Mitch confirmed, "And we're trying to figure out who it is, but you and the other guys all have perfect alibis."

"Well, it can't be me," Rita smirked confidently, "I'm in Alberta right now." She held her phone up so that Mitch could hear an announcement playing that identified her location as the college she was touring.

"Thanks for hearing me out on this at least," Mitch said to his gaming friend, "And if either of those 2 call you and mention the game pieces, be sure to call me right back, ok?"

"You can count on that," Rita assured Mitch as they both hung up their phones.

….

Kaylyn and Miles both eventually arrived at the diner. "You wanted us to meet you here Mitch?" Miles asked.

Gwen was looking at Mitch's pocket calendar. Mitch was one of 5 members of a gaming club consisting of him, Kaylyn, Miles, Rita, and Miles's brother Chad. She saw how Mitch had made a note that on each of their birthdays (January 10th, April 9th, July 14th, and September 20th) they would get together and play all the latest big budget titles.

"Yeah I wanted to see you both," Mitch told his friends, "Did you guys get any new game pieces?"

"I didn't," Kaylyn said, sitting down, "Man, being stuck in my car while in platform shoes sucks."

"It wasn't so bad for me," Miles chuckled, "I got to enjoy first class on my flight while wearing tennis shoes."

"I'm gonna cut to the chase, someone stole Mitch's Wii Party pieces," Gwen revealed bluntly to the other gamers."

"And you think it could've been one of us?" Kaylyn asked, "When did this happen?"

"Around 10:30 this morning," Mitch said.

"Then it can't be me, my flight did not arrive until 11:30," Miles explained, pulling up the airport's website which could confirm departure and arrival times.

"And I just barely got out of that traffic jam," Kaylyn nodded.

"I'm gonna go back to the scene of the incident Mitch," Gwen told her brother.

"Let me come to, I wanna help solve this case, after all, I am the victim," Mitch pointed out.

"Fine," Gwen gave in.

…

Gwen and Mitch went back to where Mitch had been attacked by the person in the ninja suit.

"All of their alibis check out," Gwen said to her brother, "This is gonna be a tricky case to solve."

"I think whoever did this was standing over here in these bushes," Mitch said to her sister, pointing out multiple broken branches.

Gwen pulled out a magnifying glass and examined the scene. Though it was pretty faint, she could make out a certain shoeprint in the dirt nearby.

"But this is impossible," Gwen thought to herself, "That person can't have done it, their alibi checks out."

"To tell the truth Gwen, if we can't find out who it was I won't get mad," Mitch said, "Besides, there are other things on my schedule today. I actually have a date tonight, believe it or not."

"Date?" Gwen repeated, a theory forming in her head. "Mitch, do all of those guys live here in town?"

"Yeah, they do," Mitch nodded,

"And you're all still in high school, right?" Gwen asked next.

"Uh….yeah," Mitch replied.

A smirk appeared on the goth girl's face. "Then I think I've figured out who the culprit is in this case, Mitch!" she grinned to her younger brother.

…

Gwen and Mitch headed back to the diner where Kaylyn and Miles were finishing eating the food they had ordered.

"Welcome back guys," Miles said.

"Did you find out who stole the pieces?" Kaylyn asked the siblings.

"As a matter of fact, I have," Gwen revealed to the two slightly younger than her teens, "It's someone who is sitting here in this very diner!"

"It is?" Miles gasped, "Who was it?"

Gwen pointed her finger dramatically. "The culprit is you…..Miles!"

"Me?!" Miles gasped, "How could it have been me? My flight didn't get in until almost noon. You said the thief attacked you earlier than that."

"You weren't alone in this scheme," Gwen explained to the culprit, "You had the help of your brother, Chad. Or better yet, should I say, your twin brother Chad."

"Oh yeah," Kaylyn nodded, "You said Chad had gone out of town for a few weeks, I had wondered where he went."

"If you have Chad your ID and wallet," Gwen explained next, "He'd be able to take your place on the flight. You yourself got back here to Toronto by getting in a car and driving back. I heard from the news that if you were past a certain spot by at least midnight, you'd be able to avoid the traffic ham completely, am I right?"

"So you hid in some bushes, since you knew my jogging route," Mitch said next, having been told the deduction by Gwen on their way back to the diner, "And pounced when you got a chance."

"You then simply waited for your twin brother to arrive back to Toronto on the flight you were supposed to be on. There was no trick with the plane times, there was a trick with the passengers. And as for how I knew you had a twin brother, I saw Mitch's calendar. Apparently the 5 of you make up your own gaming club, and you promised to play new games on each of your birthdays. Yet there were only 4 birthdays listed on the calendar. That made me realize that two of you could've been born on the same day, meaning there was a pair of twins involved."

"But how do you know I conspired with my brother to do this?" Miles demanded to know, "Where's your proof Gwen?"

"First of all, the simple fact is the fact that you're the only one besides Mitch who I heard had a sibling, and when Mitch and I went back to check out the crime scene, we found your shoeprint in the dirt. For me, I think I can count this case as closed."

Miles sighed. The scheme he had concocted to give himself a perfect alibi had proven to be all for nought.

"Now give me back my game pieces," Mitch demanded, "And you can count yourself as forgiven."

"Do I have to?" Miles sighed, "I've had no luck with the game so far…."

"Well, some of us just have more skill then the rest," Kaylyn chuckled as Mitch was handed back his Wii Party pieces.

"Thanks for your help Gwen," Mitch smiled appreciatively to his sister.

"Don't mention it," Gwen replied.

….

A little later, Mitch and Gwen were preparing to head home.

"How was college?" Mitch asked Gwen.

"Crazy, very crazy," Gwen admitted, "Especially since it's possible some of the people in my dorm were murdered…."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Mitch apologized.

As they were talking, Gwen noticed a few workers carrying giant reflective mirrors to install in the nearby mall.

"Our crazy mayor's making us do this…" one of the workers grumbled.

Seeing the giant mirror made Gwen realize something. "I'm gonna have to get back to my college Mitch," Gwen exclaimed to her brother, "Send my regards to mom."

"Why?" Mitch asked, confused, "You just got back to town and your finals should be over now…."

"I'm heading back because I just figured something big out…" Gwen said to her brother.


	12. Broadcast Murder

**The Toon Files Episode 142: Broadcast Murder.**

**2 Hours Earlier…..**

There was a moment of awkward silence at the table in the cafeteria the residents of Typhon Hall were sitting at.

"If these truly are murder," Bert said, "Then who could be next?"

"We don't know what the killer's pattern is," Hiccup nodded, "It could've just been coincidences that his or her first two targets lived in the same building."

"But here's the thing," Lian pointed out, "For the killer to have gotten to Zack's room, even though it was locked, they would have had to go in through the door, as the windows are perfectly sealed."

"So, even if the culprit isn't someone who lives in Typhon Hall, it would at least had to have been somebody who visited in the last day."

All of a sudden, Gwen's cell phone began to ring. "It's my brother Mitch," she said, checking the caller ID.

"Hey Gwen," Mitch said, sounding very concerned over the phone, "I've been attacked and robbed. You gotta get back home right now!"

"Uh, ok," Gwen nodded, "Be right there, I should get back to our world in 30 minutes." She turned to her friends, "Sorry to cut this short, but there's a family emergency, I have to get going."

"Take care Gwen," Umi said.

"And I have to get to the club," Popka grinned, hopping out of his seat, "The party goes all day, and I don't want to miss a minute of it."

"So what are we going to do now?" Bert asked the others.

"The thing is, a lot of our home worlds are gonna need us back now that the semester is over," Hiccup said regretfully, "We should start packing…."

…..

Popka, even though he did get help with his classes from a lot of his new friends, was never the biggest fan of Albright University or just the idea of attending college in general.

As he was walking to the club he had tickets to, he saw that he was not the only one headed there. He saw a lion he had heard about before walking down the street.

"Aren't you that Prince Xiro?" Popka asked.

"Yeah," Xiro replied. He still lived in the palace in his kingdom, even if Dagnino was the king of it now.

"Are you headed to the club for the party?" the Lunatean grinned.

"You better believe it," Xiro smirked. The lion prince was always rather laidback, and fun was always his goal.

"I need something to take my mind off what happened anyways…" Popka thought to himself, the knowledge of what happened to Dean and Zack, whether it was murder or suicide, still creeped him out a little.

…..

At the club in the North end of Albright, the music was playing through the whole establishment. "Aw yeah!" Xiro grinned, as he danced about, he had some fancy paw-work on the dance floor.

Popka was taking a little break from the dancing to get himself something to drink. It was at this moment that Chauncey, the rather foul-mouthed and quite likely psychotic host of Wonder Showzen came onto the club's stage to begin his comedy act.

"Ok, so all you losers bothered to come out here tonight," the yellow-felted puppet laughed, "I might as well entertain you."

Popka and other toons that were fans of Chauncey chuckled at the opening bit.

On a big projection screen in the club, Chauncey had a live feed from across the city of Albright picked up. On the other side of the camera was Clarence, one of the Wonder Showzen puppets that was known for annoying random people on the street in New York City.

"Oh hey Chauncey," Clarence said to the camera recording his side.

"You're late for the party," Chauncey chastised.

"Don't blame me, I got drunk," Clarence burped, slightly out of it.

Watching the video, Popka noticed something odd in the background. There was a sewer pipe a short distance behind Clarence, and the Lunatean could see a dirty looking figure climb out of it weakly.

"What's that?" Popka wondered to himself.

"Get over here when you can," Chauncey instructed Clarence.

"Uh sure thing," Clarence replied, when all of a sudden, he began to scream.

"What's going on?!" Chauncey asked.

"There's somebody with a knife!" Clarence shouted, as the partygoers saw a knife go into Clarence's chest, and then the camera got knocked over.

"Oh crap," Chauncey gasped, "I better get going now!"

…..

Popka, who was a fan of Wonder Showzen, stood atop Chauncey's car which he took to get back to the area the hotel was at.

"I hope it's not too late," Popka thought to himself as they arrived outside the hotel.

"What the hell are you doing here, guy?" Chauncey asked as he stopped the car and saw that Popka had come along for the ride.

"Just wanting to help save Clarence," Popka explained to the host puppet.

"Fine," Chauncey sighed, concerned, "It looked like he was over by that side of the building."

"Got it!" Popka called, running to see if they could find a trace of Clarence.

Since Clarence was not the type of being that had blood, he wouldn't be able to use that method to track him down.

However, Popka soon found out that tracking Clarence or the attacker would not be necessary, as Chauncey let out a shout.

"What happened?!" Popka called, fearing the worst.

"It's Clarence," Chauncey pointed to a spot by the sidewalk. "He's dead!"

"Damn it!" Popka frowned, pounding the ground with his fist. His attempt to get away from thoughts of tragedy had only gotten him interwoven into a new one.

…

It only took a few minutes for the Albright police to arrive at the hotel where Clarence's body had been found outside.

"So you say that over 40 people at the Palm Tree Club were watching a video discussion between you and the victim?" the police officer asked Chauncey.

"Yes, that's what happened," the host of Wonder Showzen nodded in reply.

"And during the talk, someone off-camera began attacking the victim with a knife?" the officer said next.

"Yes, that's what happened," Popka nodded to the cop.

"And who are you?" the officer asked Popka.

"My name is Popka, I'm going to the local university. I am a fan of Wonder Showzen, so when I saw that one of them was being attacked I hopped along for the ride to see if I'd be able to help," Popka explained to the Albright police.

"And who was the one who found the body?" another one of the cops asked.

"It was me," Chauncey explained, "He was lying by the sidewalk."

"Are there any possible suspects you can think of?" the cop asked Chauncey.

"Well, there's my other acquaintances Wordsworth and Sugath," Chauncey recalled, "They're also staying at the hotel here."

"Um, actually, there's one suspect I can think of," Popka told the police.

"And who would that be?" the cops questioned.

"This may sound weird, but here me out," Popka requested.

…..

Popka lead the police over to the sewer pipe he had seen a person emerge from earlier. "Right before Clarence got attacked," he began to explain to everyone, "I saw some guy climbing out of this pipe."

"Did it look like they had a knife on them?" the officer asked the Lunatean, hoping this would be a lead.

Popka thought hard for a moment, trying to recall every detail he could remember of the mysterious person. "Well, to tell the truth, it didn't look like they had a weapon on them….."

"It was probably some drunk hooligan," another cop theorized, "He probably thought the sewer was something to explore, so he climbed into the pipe. He then probably felt extra cold, so he came running back out."

"At least you were able to point out some details son," another cop told Popka, "We'll keep this in our notes."

"First a suicide at the college, now a murder at the hotel," a wolf officer sighed, "This has not been a calm week for our city, has it?"

"No it has not," a hyena cop nodded in response.

Two of the other officers who had been called to the scene turned back to Chauncey.

"Do you know what rooms your cohosts were staying in?" one of them asked the yellow furry puppet.

"Yeah, I do," Chauncey nodded, "They're both on the third floor of the hotel."

….

Popka, Chauncey, and the officers took the elevator to reach the floor where the other Wonder Showzen cast mates were staying. They were able to find out from the Concierge that they were still in their rooms.

"Oh hello officers," Wordsworth said, the smart puppet opening his door first, "What happened?" he noticed Chauncey standing by the cops, "Was there a drunk driving accident again?"

"No sir," one of the Albright police officers replied, "I regret to inform you that your colleague Clarence has been found dead."

"What?!" Wordsworth gasped, scrubbing his glasses clean, "What happened to him?!"

"He was found stabbed outside the hotel," a tiger cop explained to the smart one, "Where were you approximately 30 minutes ago?"

"You don't think I'm a suspect in this murder, do you?" Wordsworth asked, offended, "If you all must know, 30 minutes ago I was browsing the internet using the hotel's wi-fi connection."

"is there any way that can be verified?" one of the cops questioned Wordsworth.

"Of course it can be verified," Wordsworth smirked, "Check with the hotel concierge downstairs. They'll be able to get the records of all the guests using the hotel's internet."

"Do not leave the vicinity, we'll keep in touch," the wolf cop said.

…..

Next up on the suspect list was Sugath. She was staying in a room down the hall from Wordsworth.

"Is there something that's the matter officers?" the one main girl puppet of Wonder Showzen asked those that were waiting outside her door.

"Yeah, there's a big problem, someone killed Clarence!" Popka blurted rather bluntly, earning him some stern looks from the Albright police officers who had come to respond to the incident.

"That's horrible!" Sugath gasped, not knowing how to respond to this news.

"Mam, where were you around half an hour ago?" the tiger officer questioned Sugath.

"I was in the hotel's spa," Sugath explained, setting down a towel "I had made an appointment earlier today. The people who were in charge of the spa should still be on the shift. If you talk to them, they'll be able to confirm I was there."

"Is there security footage of you going there?" Popka asked, unsure of who to trust.

"There should be," Sugath nodded.

"Just leave kid," one of the cops scolded Popka, "Though we'll take note of what you've told us, you are not helping with this investigation. Please leave."

"Fine," Popka grumbled, turning and walking down the hall, "I'll go."

…

As Popka was leaving the Albright hotel, he went over to get a glimpse at Clarence's body.

Being a puppet, Clarence was leaking stuffing and not blood from his wounds. There were many superficial ones all over his body, but there was a nice, big stab mark in his stomach.

"Hm….." Popka pondered to himself, there was something telling him that what he was seeing was not right. But he couldn't quite put his claw on it.

However, the Lunatean was about to get the clues he needed to solve the case as another officer who was standing outside got a call from the Albright Police HQ.

"Got it," the cop responded to the call, jotting down some notes, "I'll inform Officer Wentz right away."

"What did you learn officer?" Popka asked the cop who had not been present when he was told to leave.

"According to the coroner's examination," the cop replied, "The victim had been dosed with chloroform before he was killed."

"That's odd," Popka thought to himself, "Why would the killer need to use that on him? It looked like the killer was able to get the surprise pounce on him…."

But then, the mystery began to become clear to Popka. Everything he had seen before was starting to add up.

As the other cops walked back in the hotel to talk with their fellow officers, Popka began to smirk. "I know who the killer is," Popka said to himself, "And I know just how to prove it."

….

A little later, the cops were still talking to the cast of Wonder Showzen.

"Be sure to contact us if you remember or notice anything strange," the tiger cop requested of Chauncey, Sugath, and Wordsworth.

"Actually, that won't be necessary officer," Popka spoke up, appearing almost out of nowhere with a projector and a screen, "I've figured out who the killer is!"

"You have, huh?" the wolf cop chuckled, deciding to humor Popka. "Go on."

Popka set the screen up and began to play some video footage. It was the video footage of Clarence that everyone at the party had seen.

"What's significant about this?" the tiger cop asked.

"Watch where he got stabbed," Popka said, as they saw the offscreen killer stab Clarence in the chest.

"Wait a minute…." The cops all realized.

"You'll notice that on the body, the big stab wound is in Clarence's stomach, not his chest," Popka explained, "And there's a reason for this. What all of us watched at the party was a prerecorded clip! Obviously that had been a prank that at least Clarence and Chauncey were involved in."

"But Clarence was actually murdered," the tiger cop said to Popka.

"Precisely," Popka nodded, "The murderer is…..Chauncey!"

Chauncey could only laugh mockingly at the accusation. "How could I have killed him?"

"You needed a witness," Popka explained, "You probably told Clarence a second part of the prank would be him revealing himself on camera, but that was never going to happen. You killed him right behind my back."

"That would be a perfect scheme," the hyena cop nodded, "He would have a perfect alibi with dozens of witnesses to back him up."

"And that's where the chloroform comes in," Popka continued, "When we got here to the hotel, I was under the impression that Clarence was at least badly hurt if he wasn't dead. You drugged him so he wouldn't make any noise as you killed him for real."

"But where's your proof that I'm the killer?" Chauncey demanded to know.

"The proof is in the footage," the Lunatean replied to the host he no longer enjoyed watching, "The uneven stab wounds are enough, plus, if they look closely, they might be able to identify your handprints on the knife."

"Aww damn it," Chauncey grumbled as he was put into handcuffs.

"But why would you do this Chauncey?" Wordsworth and Sugath asked, shocked, "You and Clarence didn't have any kind of fight recently."

"It didn't need to be a fight," Chauncey revealed to his fellow puppets, "You've seen his segments, right? He just really got on my nerves recently."

Wordsworth and Sugath could only pause. As much as both they and Popka hated to admit it, he may have had a point there. "It still doesn't justify killing him," Wordsworth said as Chauncey was taken away by the Albright police.

…..

Popka stood outside the hotel and sighed. He wasn't sure of what to do next. Now that all his exams were over, he probably could just go back to Lunatea, he knew how to get into contact with Klonoa, Lolo, and the others.

But before he could make the call, he saw something in the distance.

"What the?" the Lunatean asked, seeing someone weekly crawl through an alleyway near the hotel. It only took a few moments to realize that this was the stranger he had seen emerging from the sewer pipe in the video earlier!

Popka ran over to the person, who was a lion. He looked very dirty and his mane was all scraggly, and he was probably in his early to mid-20s.

"Hey, are you all right dude?" Popka asked, concerned.

"Call 911…" the lion begged tiredly.

"Ok, gotcha, they'll be here any moment," Popka nodded, calling the officers back, "Who are you, by the way?"

"I'm Jeff Hayward," the lion wheezed, about to pass out, "I've….been…trapped….."

As the lion passed out, thankfully still alive, Popka went wide eyed. He remembered the name from one of Peng's articles on the local urban legends.

He was one of the seven who had been missing for a year!


	13. How Lives Cross

**The Toon Files Episode 143: How Lives Cross.**

Popka waited beside Jeff Hayward as the ambulance soon pulled up beside them. "Holy crap," the hyena officer said, "What happened to this guy?"

"He said he was trapped somewhere," Popka explained, as they got Jeff safely into the ambulance. "He said his name was Jeff Hayward."

"WHAT?!" the cops all exclaimed in unison, getting a better look at the passed out lion. His fur had become much more scraggly over the past year, but he did match up to the profile of the lion who had vanished around a year ago.

"It really is him," the tiger cop told the Albright police captain. "We've finally found one of the missing seven!"

"Let's hope he knows where all the others are," the captain said, "After all this time, there's still hope!"

Popka couldn't believe what he had just found. It turned out that there was truth to the urban legends Hiccup and Peng had been talking about for the past few days.

"I gotta get in contact with the guys," Popka thought to himself. He pulled out his phone and dialed the snow leopard's number.

"Hello?" Peng asked on the other end of the line.

"Peng you'll never guess what I just found!" Popka exclaimed.

But then Popka heard Blu exclaim "Guys look up here!" The Lunatean had no idea what was going on back at the college.

"Get the door open!" he heard Lian exclaim next.

"Popka, I'll take to you later," Peng said, hanging up the phone.

"Drat," Popka frowned, not knowing that his friends had just discovered another body, "I really thought they'd be interested in hearing this. I'll call them back later, I guess."

…..

Back in Typhon Hall, Anna, Abigail, Hiccup, and Kai were packing their bags in preparation for heading back to their home worlds.

"So, none of you are graduating this semester huh?" Allister asked, the human was still relaxing in a cot he had set up.

"Nope, Hiccup and I both finish after next semester," Anna explained to Allister.

Abigail noticed Kai was holding something in his hand. "What's that Kai?" the woodmouse asked the card fighter.

"Something I picked up in the main building the other day," Kai explained, "I just found it lying on the ground, so I just took it."

"Could I see it?" Abigail asked.

"Knock yourself out," Kai shrugged, tossing the resident of Dapplewood what he had found.

Abigail looked the item over. What Kai had found was a bent nail. "What would this be doing in the hall of the main building?" she wondered to herself.

"Are any of you guys going to the graduation?" Hiccup asked his friends, "I know Zoey's graduating tonight."

"Maybe," Abigail replied, noticing that the bent nail had a tiny groove in the center.

…

Meanwhile, at the Albright Hospital, the ambulance pulled up to the entrance. Jeff was carefully carried in on a stretcher, while Popka followed closely behind him.

"He's gone through a lack of proper nutrition," one of the paramedics informed the nurse, "But he should be able to make it."

"After all this time, one of them is still alive, it's a miracle," the nurse said, everyone around was shocked by this news.

As Jeff was taken into surgery, Popka went to the front desk.

"Excuse me," the Lunatean said politely, "Could ya tell me what room Dean Playmer is in? I'm one of his buds."

"He's in room E11," the komodo dragon at the desk informed Popka.

"Thank you," Popka nodded in response, wanting to see if his classmate was recovering. "I just hope Peng and the others are finished with whatever was going on when I called them the first time…."

….

"Another locked room murder?" Umi gasped, "How could this happen again?"

"Uh, I'm not so sure if this is murder guys," Bert said, noticing a piece of paper. "You all might want to take a look at this."

"Let's see," Lian responded, grabbing the paper and began to read off. "Those boys, Dean and Zack, they drove me insane with their behavior in my classes. I snapped and plotted to end them once and for all. But when I saw the sadness caused by the tributes at the graduation I realized the error of my ways, and the only way I can atone for my sin is to take my own life-Josie Vineyard."

"So it's a suicide?" Peng frowned, finding it hard to believe that the case was over just like this, "And she was the one who killed Dean and Zack?"

"That can't be it!" Lian suddenly exclaimed, "It talks about what happened at the graduation, except the graduation still doesn't start for 45 minutes, guys!"

"Then that must mean she was murdered and the killer tried to make it look like a suicide," Blu nodded.

"I'll call the police," Bert said, when suddenly Peng and Lian stopped him.

"Wait, think about this," Peng pointed out, "Because of that note, we know not only that this was a murder, but we totally messed up his or her plan by finding the body this early."

"The killer probably still doesn't know that we found Vineyard dead yet," Lian continued, "If no one found her until long after, the time of death would be harder to determine."

"So why can't we call the cops?" Bert questioned, still confused.

"Because whoever the killer is, they need to be sure that someone finds the body in the time period they had planned. If they see the cops show up, they'll probably figure that someone found Josie dead," Lian deduced, "According to my analysis she couldn't have been dead for more than an hour now."

"And what I still can't figure out," Blu said, "Is how all these killings are connected."

"Indeed," Umi nodded, "At first when we determined what was going on to be murder, I worried maybe at first that it was someone targeting people who stayed in our dorm, but this death throws that whole theory off track."

"And, as petty as motives for crime can be," Lian said, going along with other theories, "I don't think they were killed in order to keep some academic cheating scandal secret."

"And if this was someone just randomly killing for fun," Peng continued, "They wouldn't choose such elaborate methods."

"That brings up the next problem," Blu noted, "How was the killer able to lock this office from the inside?"

"The only ones small enough to fit through the window on the top of the door would be you or Abigail," Bert said to the spix's macaw. "And I'm pretty sure that the two of you are not murderers."

As the friends were thinking of what to do next, Peng's phone rang again. "It's Popka again," Peng said to the others, "I guess I'll talk to him this time."

….

"Peng, you are not going to friggen believe this," Popka said, grateful that he had gotten the chance to talk with the others again, "I just solved a murder that happened right after I got to the club, and then I found someone who had crawled out of the sewers!"

"And what's particularly special about the latter?" the snow leopard asked.

"Peng, you know those local urban legends you looked up," the Lunatean explained with a tone of excitement at being able to be the one to reveal this info, "Specifically the one about the 7 missing students?"

"Yeah?" Peng responded, surprised that Popka suddenly had an interest in them.

"We just found one of them alive!" Popka revealed. Peng put the call on speaker phone so that everyone could listen in. "He's being treated at the local hospital as we speak."

"Oh my god," Peng gasped at this revelation, "Was he able to say anything about where he was this whole time?"

"He didn't quite say it, but I'm guessing he was stuck down in the sewers."

"I've heard some crazy things about Albright's sewer system," Blu commented, recalling an article he had read once, "It can practically be a labyrinth down there."

"Wait a minute," Peng realized, thinking of another of the legends he had discovered while attending college, "If the sewer system goes across the whole city, then perhaps the mysterious cries that people kept hearing over the past year….."

"Were their shouts for help," Lian nodded, seeing where Peng was taking his deduction.

"Then maybe the others are still down there!" Bert realized.

"But how will we be able to find them?" Umi asked.

"I have an idea," Lian smirked, "We have to find Abigail."

"Are you at the hospital right now Popka?" Peng asked the Lunatean.

"Yeah, why?" Popka replied.

"Do you think you can check and see how Dean's doing?" the snow leopard asked his party loving friend.

"I'm going to do that right now, in fact, just hold for a moment," Popka told Peng.

….

Keeping Peng on the line, Peng found Dean's room in the Albright hospital. The tiger in his early 20s was resting, having been treated for his wounds, but he was still in a coma.

"I talked with some of the doctors," Popka explained to his friends, "They think he's gonna survive, but they're not sure when he'll wake up."

"Do you notice any weird details about him?" Lian asked, taking the phone from Peng.

"it's kind of hard to tell, since he's all bandaged up," Popka said, seeing the sleeping tiger lie against the bed.

"How did he manage to survive a fall like that anyways?" Blu asked as he flew above the snow, he had a special cloth made to keep him warm.

"I really hope he has a metal plate in his head or something," Popka nodded, "Cause if he survived because of his muscle mass, we're never going to hear the end of it when he wakes up…."

"Agreed," Lian chuckled at the other end of the line, "But we still need to figure out how the killer managed to make Dean fall without being up on the roof with him."

"There has to be a clue we're missing," Peng nodded, seeing several cars pull in around the Albright University Athletic Center, where the graduation was going to be held a little later that night.

Bert nodded and added, "And what's the thing that links all these together?"

…

In Typhon Hall, Peng's group found Hiccup, Abigail, Kai, and Anna having mostly finished packing their bags, almost ready to head back to their respective worlds.

"Hey guys," Abigail waved, "Did you solve the mystery yet?"

"About that," Bert chuckled nervously.

"We found Professor Vineyard dead from cyanide," Peng revealed bluntly, making all the others who had not been present when the body was found gasp.

"How could that be?" Anna gasped.

"There are some theories we are checking out," Lian explained, and then she turned to Abigail. "Hey Abigail, do you still maintain contact with the people you worked with in the TDC?"

"Um, yeah," Abigail nodded, "Is there someone you want to talk to?"

"There is," Lian smirked, having explained her idea to the others.

…

In the real world, one of the TGWTG critics, Linkara, answered the call. "Abigail?" the comic reviewer who often fought to save his world asked, "You kinda called out of nowhere."

"It's a long story," the woodmouse explained to the internet critic, "The thing is, we're gonna need one of your scanning orbs to create a virtual map of a sewer complex."

"Why would you need that?" Linkara asked.

"Because we've found evidence to suggest that there are some people who could be trapped down there," Abigail explained.

"Got it," Linkara nodded, preparing one of the devices, "Just give me the coordinates of the world you are in."

Abigail gave the comic reviewer the needed coordinates. "We'll send it right back when we're done," Peng promised.

"Just glad I could help," Linkara replied, getting ready to start filming his latest episode.

…

"Fancy tech," Bert awed as the scanning bot went down into the Albright sewers, "Even the Sneer cooperation never made anything this cool!"

"Well, your world is still in the 1980s Bert," Blu pointed out matter of factly.

"Now that leaves finding the person who killed Dean and Prof. Vineyard," Lian instructed next.

"But where should we go next?" Kai asked, still holding the bent nail.

"I think we should go back to the most recent crime scene," Hiccup suggested, "Dean's in the hospital and Bert, you have taken as many pictures of Zack's scene as you could."

"There's one thing I still don't get about Zack's death," Peng thought aloud.

"And what is that?" Lian asked her boyfriend.

"The thing that led you to suspect Prof. Vineyard was that Zack was wearing the boots you had seen her buy. But based on everything we saw in the pictures, that was the only boot of that kind he was wearing, let alone have on him. Why only one?"

"Hm, now that I think about it, I did her right around the time you said Dean fell," Kai remembered.

"Did she do anything that looked suspicious?" Peng asked.

"No, she just asked what I was doing, I told her I was delivering that letter for Dagen, that was it, and she walked off," Kai said, "You must've run inside just moments later."

"Say, have you guys seen Tina or Allister anywhere?" Bert commented as they headed back to the psych professor's office.

…

The toons who had not been present when Josie's body was discovered winced when they saw their fallen professor.

"What a horrible way to die," Abigail frowned.

"How could the killer have gotten her to take the cyanide without her noticing?" Hiccup asked, "There doesn't seem to be any signs of a struggle."

"Perhaps it was from what she was drinking," Anna said, pointing to a glass that was next to her computer.

"You're right Anna, I can still see some liquid in the bottom of the glass," Peng nodded, examining the glass carefully.

"And look here," Bert noticed, "You can see the residue of another cup on the other side of the table," the raccoon pointed, "Chances are someone else was in the room with her."

"But who, that's the question," Umi muttered.

All of a sudden, Peng's cell phone rang again. "Popka," he informed the others as he answered the call."

…..

"I've got big news," Popka said, grinning as he got to reveal facts about the case that he managed to beat the others to discovering, "I did some fact checking on the web, and you'll never believe this."

"What did you find?" Lian asked.

"It turns out that the 7 people who went missing last year all went to high school together," Popka began to reveal, "But that's not all. You know who also went to their high school with them? It was Dean and Zack!"

Everyone looked surprised at this revelation. "You don't think what happened here this week on campus was done by the same person who was behind their disappearance, do you?" Kai asked.

"And according to the doctors," Popka said next, "Dean apparently had a skin imprint in the shape of a thin line around his chest and arm prints, like some kind of wire caused it."

Suddenly, a theory popped into Kai's head. He showed the others the bent nail he had found on the floor of the main building.

"There's a thin marking on this nail that looks like it was caused by a wire too," he explained.

"Guys, check this out!" Umi exclaimed. The others came over. "In the hollow spots on her chairs' wheels, I found these inside them," she explained, pulling out what looked like tiny toy cars that could be controlled.

"Hmmm…." Peng said, a theory starting to form in his mind and the minds of a lot of his friends.

….

The group walked and talked in the center of the campus, as the snow had stopped falling.

"So, that seems to be it," Bert said, "That's who the killer is?"

"It looks to be like that, yeah," Lian nodded, "But I can't figure out why."

All of a sudden, the young toons heard Gwen calling out to them. "I wondered where you all were," Gwen panted, her breath visible in the cold air.

"Hey Gwen," Anna said, "Were you able to solve that emergency?"

"Yeah I was," Gwen smirked, glad that she had been able to help her little brother out, "But while I was back in my home world, I figured out some of those urban legends."

"Which ones?" Hiccup asked curiously.

"Two of them, to be precise," the Goth girl explained, "The bloody beach and the flying car. I figured that the car was not really suspended in mid-air at all, but rather giant mirrors had been placed up against the Cliffside, or maybe it was a short bridge. But this made it look like the car was driving over the water, and whoever saw it probably looked away before the car ended up tumbling down into the water.

"And the bloody beach?" Bert asked.

"Whoever set up the glass, this could have been an accident or on purpose, it shattered and the shards fell down to the water and were moved towards that beach by the current," Gwen continued.

After everything that had happened, these little local legends felt like immaterial to Peng, minus Popka finding one of the missing people, of course.

But all that changed when Gwen showed her friends some more detailed articles on both of the legends. Specifically, the article on the suicide that was connected to the flying car legend.

Peng and the others saw the name of the person who had committed suicide.

"So that's why," Lian said somberly.

"Why what?" Gwen asked, confused.

"We know who killed Zack and Josie," Hiccup explained.

"Josie's dead too?!" Gwen exclaimed.

"We have to catch the killer now before it's too late," Peng said.

Lian turned to Anna and Bert. "Actually, Bert, could you grab that special bike you had made?" the snow leopardess asked.

"Uh sure, why?" the resident of the Evergreen Forest asked.

"I'm worried what the killer might try…" Lian explained.

…..

In the Albright University athletic center, the graduation ceremony had begun. Peng, Lian, Blu, and Hiccup went to confront the culprit while Kai, Gwen, Abigail, and Umi went to find Zoey.

"What are you guys doing here?" Zoey whispered loudly, the batgirl was in a chair at the end of a row.

"Zoey, your life may be in danger," Abigail explained, "You have to come with us."

"Huh?" Zoey asked, confused.

…

Peng and the others saw Professor Dagen sitting in one of the balcony seat rows. "Hey Professor Dagen," Peng said, "How's the graduation going?"

"Oh, fine Peng," William replied, "What brings you up here?"

"The people you killed, professor," Lian revealed bluntly.

William began to laugh, "What on earth are you talking about Lian?"

"There's no more hiding it professor," Blu said, flying around Prof. Dagen's seat, "We know the tricks you used in all your crimes."

"What crimes?" Dagen said, befuddled.

"First, there was Dean's fall," Peng began to explain, "You enlisted Kai as an unwitting accomplice. You lured him up to the roof of the main building and knocked him up. You held his body up with fishing wire, and you attached the end of the wire to a nail, which you locked into place by shutting a door on it. When Kai opened the door, it triggered his fall. Unfortunately for you, Kai happened to see the nail and hold onto it."

William began to laugh, "You guys seriously think I'm some kind of criminal?" he smirked, "That's more absurd then a bad creative writing class story!"

"This brings us to Zack's murder," Lian continued bluntly, "At first, I thought it was Josie because of the boot he was wearing, but then I realized that she had given you the boots."

"She had a crush on you, didn't she?" Blu figured.

"When you visited Typhon Hall, you went into his room and set up your scheme. You knocked him out, and placed his mattress so it was dangling over the edge of his bed. You put a boot on one foot so it would be top-heavy. Then you called his phone, which you had set on the opposite side of the mattress. When he reached over to grab it in his woozy state, it made the mattress fall off and he ended up getting hanged."

"We found an RC car in his room," Peng said, "The kind of car Zack doesn't care for, but we know you're a big fan. You were able to lock his dorm room by simply controlling it and slamming it into the door."

William was beginning to get angry. "How could you possibly accuse me of something so heinous without any proof? You know I would never murder anyone!"

"Not only are you a killer," Hiccup explained, "But you killed Josie simply because she had found you out. She probably invited you to her office so she could try to convince you to turn yourself in. Needing to come up with a plan quickly, you pretended to go along with it and slipped the cyanide into her drink when she wasn't looking, and planned to pin the murders on her."

"You were able to lock her office with more RC cars. You put tiny ones inside the swivel chair wheels and moved them towards the door, where the weight of the chair and Josie's body would be enough to push the door closed," Peng concluded.

"And as for the 7 people you made disappear last year," Blu said, "Well guess what, one of them turned up alive and is being treated at the hospital right now.

William went wide-eyed in horror as he seemingly perfect plan that he managed to get away with had completely crumbled.

"And we know why you did this, and why you made those 7 people disappear last year," Lian spoke next, "It was for your son who committed suicide, right?"

"That's right!" William growled, confessing his guilt, "My son Tim was a good kid going through high school. But in his senior year, he had become more depressed. I had heard the names of some people he had issues with in passing, and I couldn't stand that they were able to live normal, happy lives after what they had done to him!"

"Mr. Dagen, that's not true!" Zoey's voice yelled angrily. William turned to see his late son's girlfriend approaching him.

"You were my next target," William chuckled wickedly.

"I didn't want to tell you this years ago," Zoey frowned angrily, "But now I feel you have to know. The day Tim died, I found his suicide note," she said, handing it over to William. "Read it," she said coldly.

William began to read the note, recognizing his son's handwriting. But what he read made him gasp in horror. "Father, I know I will not be able to great the straight A's you've wanted me to get for so long now. I know I will always be a disappointment in your eyes, so I figure this is the best way out. Tell Zoey I love her-Tim."

"I didn't show you this cause I saw how broken you were at the time," Zoey revealed, "But now I've seen what a monster you've become. You wanted to blame everybody except yourself for what happened to Tim."

"No….no…" William gasped, realizing that both his recent murders and the throwing the 7 into the sewer labyrinth a year ago were completely and utterly pointless, "I failed you son…..I can't do this!" he yelled, suddenly taking off running.

…..

Peng, Lian, and Blu chased him up to the roof of the athletic center. Lian could tell William was going to throw himself off the ledge.

"Professor Dagen, don't do this!" Lian called.

"Why not?!" William cried hysterically, "I've done unspeakable tortures to people, I've killed others, it was for nothing!" He took a few more steps towards the ledge.

"Anna! Bert! Get ready!" Peng called to the ground level.

As William stepped off the ledge, Lian leaped after him. As the human professor was waiting for the end of his life, he suddenly saw Bert and Anna zipping up an ice ramp on the special bike Bert built in his shop class.

Lian snagged the culprit by his shirt and grabbed onto the airborne bike, which landed on a another ramp, safely stopping William's suicidal fall.

"Of course something from my class stopped me," William said, suddenly beginning to laugh in addition to his tears.

…

Over the next half hour, things got crazy. William was arrested by the Albright police and he confessed to his crimes. Linkara's device was able to map out the Albright sewers and locate the 6 remaining missing people that William had kidnapped. One by one, every single person of the 7 were rescued from the hellish maze they had spent the last 12 months in. (As it turned out, the reason for the lower amounts of rats in the city was because the 7 had been eating them as the only sustenance they could find down there.)

Zoey, Tina, and Allister saw as Dean had recovered from his wounds.

"I told you nothing can kill me," Dean smirked, able to flex his muscles despite still having a cast on one paw.

"I think your ego could survive a nuclear bomb," Zoey snickered to the tiger.

"You guys did good," Tina complimented the detectives as she played her PS Vita, "I never would've guessed everyone was connected like that."

"Yeah," Peng nodded, "it can be weird how lives cross sometimes."

"And now that everything's done for the semester I can sleep some more," Allister smirked.

"That much sleep can't be healthy," Blu chuckled.

"I can't wait to show Ralph and Mellissa my new bike stunts," Bert grinned proudly, "Anna, could I do some practice runs in your world sometimes?" he asked the princess of Arendelle.

"Sure Bert," Anna nodded to her friend.

"Toothless is definitely missing me right now," Hiccup said, "It's best I get going. It's been fun guys," he smiled, hugging all of his friends.

"Yeah, I think I need to get back to my world too," Gwen nodded, "I promise I'll keep in touch with you guys!"

"I'm looking forward to next semester," Umi smiled.

"Huh, apparently over in the other worlds Interpol was able to catch all of the Crimson Sphere gang in the past few weeks," Kai commented, watching a news report on the subject, as well as the arrest of the Interpol officer Brent Snyder.

"See you guys later," Abigail smiled, heading back to the portal to Dapplewood.

"Shall we go back now?" Peng smiled to Lian.

"Of course," Lian smirked, kissing Peng, making him blush.

…

Back in China things were going as usual in the Jade Palace. The Furious Five, Tai Lung, Po, and the children were training in kung fu (as well as stuffing their faces in Po's case.)

"Peng and Lian are back!" Crane smiled, seeing the snow leopards climb the stairs.

"We've missed you," Viper said, slithering over to them.

"Was college awesome?" Po grinned excitedly.

"It was quite a story for us," Peng chuckled lightly, "A long one, too."

"Be sure to tell us all of it," Tai Lung told his nephew.

"And don't leave out anything," Tigress added.

"We won't," Peng and Lian promised in unison. They were finally home, and they could get back to kung fu. Life was going better for them now.

…..

And so once again, with a keen eye for details, one truth was able to prevail, and life went on.

Case closed.

However…..just as one story was coming to a close, another was just about to begin….

…

Somewhere, in another world, a dark figure resided in a cell. It sat perfectly still in the center of the room, with a calmness that could be compared to Hannibal Lecter.

The figure could hear some footsteps approaching the cell. The figure gave a smirk. "Right on time…" he thought to himself.

"The plan is almost ready," the visitor told the imprisoned being, "Just 6 more months and all the pieces will be in place."

"Excellent, excellent," the figure chuckled, "Everything is going exactly on schedule. But there's that other matter I'll need you to tend to."

"I've already got that worked out, I'll be travelling there around the same time," the guest replied.

"Perfect," the figure grinned, making no effort to hold back his laughter, "Soon, very soon, none of the worlds will know what it….."


End file.
